Total Reform: The Ephraim Atrocity
by Obsidios
Summary: From across the country, eighteen troubled youths are consigned to a controversial reformatory, headed by the disgraced Colonel Maxwell McLean, in a last-ditch effort to save them from themselves. The inmates are taken to a quarry as old as the Earth for a game with a dark twist. While some bond, others further isolate themselves. Ephraim Ridge claims three more victims.
1. Prelude I: Harvest of the Lost

"When I was a kid, my dad was a Colonel in the U.S. Army. I was born when he was stationed in Newfoundland, and then all we really ever did was move around until he and my mom split up when I was fifteen. We relocated to Toronto, and I stopped hearing from him after a while. We didn't learn about his retirement until, like, eleven months after it happened.

Anyway, growing up, I remember he was never one for taking it easy on me, or Anton, really. He said that kids needed authority and guidance more than anything, and that the reason there was so much wrong with the country was because people were too soft on their kids. When I got in trouble as a teenager, his favorite threat was that he would send me to military school.

I got the call last year that he'd purchased the rights to Total Drama after the network dropped the franchise. I figured he just wanted the brand to spite me, because he never approved much of the series.

I had no idea that he would do something like this."

 _-Television mogul Chris McLean, son of Maxwell McLean, on his father's involvement._

* * *

 _On August 25th, 2016, the_ ** _Total Reform Youth Correctional Facility at Ephraim Ridge,_** _established a mere seven months prior_ _was destroyed. Most of the staff was killed, and the head of the institution, former U.S. Colonel Maxwell McLean, has been documented as 'missing'._

 _Unearthed by the conflagration was a chronicle so horrifying that the nation decreed a forthwith criminalization of similar private-owned facilities, punishable by a fine of $500,000 USD and life incarceration._ _ _The company responsible for the institution was subsequently indicted for multiple counts of inhumane practice.__

 _For fear of copycat crimes, the story of what transpired at Ephraim Ridge has yet to be told fully to the public._

 _Until now._

* * *

 ** _August 5th, 2016_**

 ** _0300 Hours (MST)_**

You think it's the wind at first, mostly because - in your stupor - you're certain you left the window open before you went to bed. When it doesn't go away like a draft normally would, then you assume it to be a bug of some sort and make a sluggish effort to bat it away. It comes back when your hand bats it off and, irritably, you crack one eye open.

In the dim lighting, all you make out is the glint from a nearby streetlight onto something made of metal resting against your cheekbone. It's only when you raise your eyes, a horrible panic burning its way through your chest, that you realize it's a pair of handcuffs, and it's being held by one of two men standing over you.

One of them, the taller of the two, leers down at you through yellow teeth.

"Mornin', cutie."

Before you can react, the two of them have you wrestled out of your bed and onto the ground, snorting with cruel laughter as you struggle in your stupor to fight them off. When you finally manage to draw breath enough to scream, a calloused hand slams itself over your mouth with enough force to make you taste blood. Cold sweat mixes with hot tears that you'd never admit to shedding as they hoist you up by the skin on the back of your neck and restrain you and drag you out of your bedroom, out of your home.

There's a van parked at the end of your driveway, stark white against midnight fog. The first thing you notice about it is that there aren't any side windows, and it's flanked on either side by armed men keeping onlookers away. Every struggle from you is met with a kick to the ankle or a tightening of someone's grip wrenching your shoulder back. For all your protests, your pleas for help at the stony-faced onlookers, they manage to force you into the vehicle. There aren't any seats for anyone other than the driver and the passenger, both of which are protected behind a layer of glass.

Someone approaches the van slowly, and your heart breaks as you lift your eyes to them.

Perhaps it's a mother or a father or a grandparent. An older sibling, or a guardian of some sort. It's the owner of the name that you screamed for help when you were being assaulted in your bedroom moments prior. There's a dejected resolution to their stance that tells you they your trust that they would help you was gravely misplaced. If they themselves hadn't directly consigned you to this fate, they at least had no intent of stopping it.

The guards shove you past your guardian and wrestle to the floor of the vehicle, handcuffing your limp wrist to a latch beneath you. All that goes through your mind is: _I don't deserve this_

You look up, pleading silently, and you can feel your heartbeat turn to an earthquake; beating so hard that the places where it's breaking split away like shattering glass within your chest. Your betrayer stand over you, their arms folded and their lips constantly pinching themselves into a thin line. They draw a shuddering breath before they finally look you in the eyes, the cold resolve in their gaze like a thousand arrows in your flesh as the van roars to life and the guards pour into the van, all of them pointing their guns at you. Your guardian takes a few deliberate steps back, away from the van and away from you.

They say, softly, "I'm sorry. I love you."

And then they, and your entire world, vanish as the door slams shut and plunges you once more into darkness.

The car speeds down roads, throwing you against the walls and across the floor in rough and disorienting turns. Through the numbness that has gripped you in the fade of the panic, you feel something press against your leg, something you vaguely remember falling asleep with.

You shake your head, terror and betrayal and dread cooling together as a miserable knot in your chest. You lean back and rest your head against the back wall, closing your eyes and hoping, praying, against all logic that this is merely a nightmare you can wake up from. Of course, you'll never wake up. This much, at least, you know for certain.

Hours pass, though you don't feel them. Rather, you merely measure them subconsciously as telltale sunlight trickles into the back of the van. One numb eternity later, the door opens and suddenly your seized by the guards and thrown onto sun-scorched red clay, the combined intensity of the heat and the sunlight greeting you like a strike to the face. The two men that attacked you earlier flank you on either side and yank you to your feet. You see other vans with other youths being dragged out, but another series of rough shoves by the guards forces you to avert your eyes. Someone thrusts you toward a weatherbeaten campground enclosed in a chain-link fence that spans into the horizon, crowned with a laurel-wreath of barbed wire.

A sign bolstered on the main gate reads: _Ephraim Ridge Youth Correctional Institution_

One of the guards, the shorter one this time, grips you by the chin and forces your ear to his lips.

"Welcome to Total Reform."

* * *

 **-General-**

Full Legal Name:

Nicknames, if applicable:

Sex:

Gender, if applicable:

Pronouns (If they identify on the gender binary, their pronouns will be "he/him" or "she/her" respectively):

Ethnicity:

Tag (equatable to stereotype):

 **-Physical-**

Age (below eighteen, obviously):

Hair:

Eyes:

Skin:

Body Type:

Identifying Features (tattoos, birthmarks, ect):

Medical Conditions, if applicable (Mental disorders are allowed but will not be glamorized. I urge you to consider that before you send me a character with MPD or something):

 **-Personal-**

Home (state and city):

Personality (I shouldn't have to say this but DETAIL!):

Biography (Same as above. Be creative.):

Family:

Sexual Orientation:

Fears:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Likes:

Dislikes:

 **-Criminal-**

Criminal/Delinquent History (why are they here?):

Greatest Secret (Remember that not everybody here has to have a police record; people can be sent to Ephraim for anything):

* * *

 **I have three major prerequisites for all potential applicants:**

 **1) Send applications through PM and PM alone. Any and all applications in the reviews will be disregarded.**

 **2) As aforementioned, I expect depth, creativity and originality in my cast. Make me a character people would want to read about. My advice to you is to put some serious thought into your OC's backstory and what they did to warrant consignment at Total Reform.**

 **3) This story is based mostly in angst and in drama, and will therefore take some rather dark turns. While it isn't possible to be eliminated, your character may die. By sending in a character, you are telling me that you are alright with this.**

 **So, what'll it be? Do you think you have what it takes to survive Total Reform?**

 **If the answer is 'yes', then I hope for your sake that you're right.**

 **À bientôt, j'espère.**

 **-Obsidios**


	2. Prelude II: One Year Prior

**August 5th, 2015**

 **1400 Hours (MST)**

When Aiyana Locklear dismounted from her nephew's car, no one looked up. Her mind instinctively flicked back to when she was a young girl living on this land when it was still a reservation. When a strange vehicle pulled up, it was usually a cause for alarm. But now, her village had been destroyed. Total Reform had seen to that when the annexed the reservation for it's proximity to Ephraim Ridge.

In a few weeks, her childhood home would be a prison camp.

The old woman's steps were brisk and painful. Each movement was an alarming game of chance against her arthritic joints, backed by the metallic roll of her oxygen tank behind her. She would've loved to rest, to sit for even a moment, but it couldn't be afforded. Every moment she delayed was a moment closer that these people were to ruin.

"You can't cross the picket!" a young man yelled at her, stopping her in her tracks at the gate. He was one of many in a massive congregation of protesters that had pooled around the barbed-wire fence of the entranceway.

She assumed him to be a teenager by looking at him, maybe seventeen at the most; with lank hair that fell to his shoulders and a haunting gauntness to his face, his hollow cheeks red and his eyes streaming tears. He'd taken off his shirt, presumably from the heat, and held a sign over his head bearing broad letters that she was too close to read. Mrs. Locklear gave him a sympathetic look.

"I used to live here," she shouted at him over the din of the crowd. "I need him off this land too, more than you know."

The young man clutched his signpost for a moment before nodding at her and moving out of her way, quickly resuming his chanting of abuse at the guards barring he and his comrades entrance to the grounds.

She marched past his fellow protesters and the staff at the front gate; the preoccupied men and women in suits, arguing on cellphones; the workers standing by newly-constructed buildings atop the ruins of homes and stores where her friends and family once lived; until, finally, she stood before the office door of the man she'd come to see. His name read on a simple metal placard by the doorframe.

 _Col_. _Maxwell McLean_

She took a deep breath before entering, not bothering to knock. There was no time for that.

The office was sparsely furnished; a few framed diplomas and certificates, a large desk overladen with memorabilia from organizations she didn't recognize, and a few curt-looking appurtenances scattered throughout the space. The man whom she assumed to be the Colonel stood facing a large window that was opposite to the door, his hands folded behind his back and his shoulders erect in annoyance at the crowd of screaming people outside the fence. Even though he faced away from her, there was a coldness to his being that told her he was more than aware of her presence. Still, she stood her ground.

"Another reporter?" groused the Colonel, the mocking snarl in his tone cutting any cordiality from the exchange. "Don't you think that you're a little old for this?"

The old woman sighed. "My name is Aiyana Locklear, Colonel, and I used to live here."

At this, he turned to her. Maxwell McLean was a tall man with broad shoulders and small, sunken eyes. He wore a green t-shirt and camouflage pants alongside an intimidating pair of boots made of thick brown leather. It must've been years since he'd seen combat, and yet he still looked like he could and would kill a man with his bare hands if ordered to.

McLean gave a low huff of exasperation. "I figured this would happen eventually. Look, I get that that reserve is sacred to you people because of some tribal shit, but my firm-"

"I'm not here because you stole my land, sir," she cut him off, and his eyes narrowed at her.

"I didn't steal anything. Your council sold that land to Total Reform."

It was a common argument she'd heard concerning the land, but never one she was stupid enough to be led to believe. "What choice did you and your lawyers give them?" she asked with a hollow smile. "Sell it off, or simply let you throw them off the land yourself, like you did with the other reservations."

His eyes narrowed further, and lowered her head in false humility.

"Oh, now, I can't prove it. But you know as well as I that your men's thieving fingerprints are all over Ephraim Ridge. But like I said, that isn't why I'm here. I'm here to warn you before you make yet another grave mistake."

"What do you mean another?"

He hadn't offered her a seat, so she helped herself to a hard-looking plastic chair in front of the desk. "What a sad little office this is. Does that other door," she jerked her thumb behind her to a chipped wooden door on the wall opposite of the desk, "lead to a bedroom? Don't tell me that you're living in here. Whatever must your poor wife think?"

The Colonel moved from the window and took a seat at his desk, looking over the applications he had pulled up on his computer. "I'm not married anymore."

"Ah, I see," she replied. Her eyes roved up to a single framed picture atop a nearby filing cabinet. A younger version of the man before her smiled at her with a smug pride, his arms slung around the two boys flanking him on either side. One of them, obviously the elder of the two, looked considerably more elated at his situation than his brother. "Then, those boys in that picture? Who are they?"

The Colonel looked up briefly from his screen, still scowling at an email he'd been sent about some little prick from Michigan who got busted with pot. He followed her gaze to the picture on his cabinet. "Those are my kids, when they were younger."

Mrs. Locklear seemed to tense behind her smile. "I might've known. I see your boy on my television all the time, especially when my niece comes to visit. She was so distraught to hear of the cancellation of that program of his. But you must be so proud; even fifteen fleeting seconds of fame is better than no notoriety at all."

At this, the old man gave a cold guffaw at the picture. "I haven't spoken to Chris in years. Had a good head in his shoulders, but he was soft as all Hell. Stenciled little punk would never've lasted in combat."

Mrs. Locklear blinked at him, seemingly undeterred by his callousness. "And the other?"

"Kid on the left is my other son, Anton. Best goddamn soldier in my unit, when he served with me."

There was a marked change in his tone, not a softening but a different kind of harshness, that confirmed a superstition that was brewing in the old woman's chest.

"My condolences, Colonel."

The old man shook his head, his fist clenched, and slotted himself a curt shrug. "Long time ago."

Mrs. Locklear pursed her lips at the awkward silence that bloomed between them, only slightly abated by the chants of the protesters outside. Many of them were students from the nearby university, activists angry about the desecration of her tribe's reservation, or locals angry at the loss of the casino on the property. The young man who'd stopped her had made his way to the front of the picketers, his face still flushed and his eyes still oozing in furious rivulets. Only now, now that she could get a good look at him, could she see why. His bare torso was covered in twisted fissures and burn scars too intricate to ever be accidental; most of his right arm looked as though he'd stuck it in a paper shredder.

His sign, painted in dark crimson ink obviously meant to emulate blood, read: " _THIS IS WHAT THEIR REFORMATION LOOKS LIKE!_ "

"Damn pothead hippies," the Colonel's voice tore her from her horror. "Come in here with their hearts bleeding all over the ground, screaming about isolated incidents."

She clamped her teeth down on her tongue to stop herself from responding. All she could think about was her career teaching high school back when she lived in Scottsdale in the eighties. Two of her English III students, Jace Masterson and his brother Adam, were sent away after a prank went wrong. They were both nice boys, mischievous perhaps but never malicious, certainly undeserving of the wilderness therapy program they were placed in to be paraded around through the desert without adequate food or water. Adam perished of heatstroke out there, and the other inmates retaliated by burning the instructor's alive in their tents. They had assumed Jace dead as well when they couldn't find his body and she herself had given a beautiful eulogy at their service.

She would've loved to have asked the Colonel, then and there, if that was indeed what their idea of reformation was. If the scars, the tears, and the funerals that happened along the way we're worth the fear-based obedience that they instilled in the children that were given over to them. Instead, she merely shook her head.

"I'd like to talk to you about this land, Colonel."

His gaze still trained on the scene outside his window, McLean gave an impatient grunt in response that she took to mean she could continue.

She took a deep breath. "When I was a young woman, I left my reservation, as many of the youths would. But it wasn't from conflicting ideals, and it certainly wasn't because I was headed for somewhere better. I wanted a family of my own, and that couldn't happen there. You see, as long as we lived in that village, on Ephraim Ridge, we were forbidden from having children. It was the decision of my people, for the good of us all."

McLean shook his head incredulously. "That doesn't make any sense. If people didn't have kids, your tribe would've gone extinct generations ago."

"I didn't say people didn't still have children, Colonel. Parenthood was merely a necessary evil. A game of faith and of chance for those who played. Some did anyway, of course, for the very reason you mentioned, but they were always special cases chosen by elders, not simple civilians like I was. Tragedy fell every generation, it became too commonplace really, but enough survived to keep us from oblivion."

"Tragedy?"

"That land has a history far beyond what my council has told you, more than likely. The soil there is as old as the Earth, far older, and far darker, than we could ever conceive. But as long as we have lived here in this desert, whatever else that was here with us has preyed on us, bit by bit. If it didn't kill our offspring outright, it would change them, corrupt them, into something like itself."

McLean glowered at her from behind the desk. "You aren't making any sense."

"Ephraim Ridge has been where, for centuries, children have gone to be destroyed."

The Colonel gave a derisive snort. "You're lying, or you're just batshit insane."

"Am I? October 1928, Ephraim Ridge is settled for the first time around a boarding school. Ten months later, both stand deserted, thousands of people simply gone and the only clue remaining is one of the teachers crucified in the town square. December 1941, a labor farm for Japanese youths is established here, only to be destroyed during a prison riot within the month. August 1987, the Three North Wilderness Therapy Institute is disbanded after all of the instructors are burned to to death by the inmates. Every time children are led into this desert, both they and those who brought them here have fallen to grievous misfortune."

McLean abandoned his work and rose to his feet, his chin raised.

"Yeah, and you know what each of those cases have in common? There's always been overwhelming suspicion that your tribe, the Kovanah people, have had something to do with the massacres." His lips lifted into a mocking smirk. "That's one of the reasons we bought the land, you know. To keep corrosive influences like you away from the program."

Mrs. Locklear opened her mouth and then closed it again, almost beside herself with rage. "How dare you?" she hissed at him, as though she were spitting acid in his smirking face. "My people have always been nothing but peaceful, even when you and your devils came traipsing all over our homes to build your little torture-playground. I came here myself to keep you from making a great mistake!"

McLean gave a humorless bark of laughter. "Spare me that. You came here to scare me off, playing up the whole shamanistic old desert woman bit, thinking I'd be stupid enough to fall for it and give you back your reservation."

The old woman's heart thundered furiously in her ears. "You're wrong! You're about to lead yourself, your workers, and people's sons and daughters into utter destruction! Just like you lead your troop-"

" _Shut up_!"

Mrs. Locklear lowered herself back into her chair, looking at the man before her as he huffed like a winded rhinoceros. She turned her face away timidly. She should've known better than to bring that up.

"I will not be spoken down to by some peyote-crazed medicine woman," spat McLean. "The people that come here aren't victims. They're criminals that need to be corrected before they become a danger to themselves and to society. I'm here to do my job."

"You're a fool," she groused, a note of dejection lacing her words.

"I'm done entertaining your idiocy. Either get out now or I'll have someone escort you off the premises."

The old woman pursed her thin lips and raised her chin defiantly. "No need for force, thank you," she replied in a voice simply drenched in honey. "I'll show myself out."

And then, as she struggled to raise her old bones, she said merely, "You bring this on yourself, you know."

She stood tall, forced her glare into his for another moment, and then turned on her heel and took her leave, clicking the door shut behind her as she went.

* * *

 **Males:**

 **1\. Bastion Davenport - The Sex Doll (Vainglory deLuxe)**

 **2\. Miles Jackson - The Amputee (LacedUp)**

 **3\. Lauro Aihara - The Roleplayer (Kukasabe Swift)**

 **4\. Cygnus Keli'i - The Transplant (Cream of the Ice)**

 **5.** **Sakushi Hasu - The Conman (That1guyeveryonehates)**

 **6\. Arlington "Arlo" Forbes - The Renegade (the female reverse flash)**

 **7\. Dante Coleman - The Artist (PretzelNinja)**

 **8\. Todd Nicholson Jr. - The Blind Bat (Jade's One of a Kind** )

 **9\. Faye Yuha - The Rabble Rouser (Kunnaki)**

 **Females:**

 **1\. Armistice "Cissi" Reeves - The Soubrette (Toxic Smiling)**

 **2\. Caroline Sumito - The Firecracker (I'mNotShortI'mFunsize)**

 **3\. Julia Brown - The Preacher's Daughter (DaRk AnGeL oF sOrRoW rEtUrNs)**

 **4.** **Arielle Mayfield - The Disavower (pizzawizz)**

 **5\. Savannah Warren - The Thrill Seeker (Bloodylilcorpse)**

 **6.** **Lana Gierheart-Delgado - The Social Butterfly (thedaffodilqueen)**

 **7\. Ana Gomez - The People Pleaser (shianen)**

 **8\. Carmen Maria - The Realist (so how's life)**

 **9\. Marley Rose - The Pickpocket (soapsuds153)**


	3. Prelude III: The Signpost

_There is a road in this world unlike any other. It diverges from another far from here, and slices through this land like a knife until it vanishes over the horizon. Time and the elements have weakened it, buried it in places. Many people don't know that it exists, and those that do tend to avoid it._

 _Many times, those who stray through here do so with haste. Whether this is because they know of this place, of me, or of what happened; or simply if they feel it's aftereffects, I've never considered. Others stay for a while, for reasons too numerous to recount. They pull over, wander about aimlessly and gather bits of stone as macabre souvenirs. Prayer is usually present, if they're the kind of people who dislike feeling powerless or apathetic. Some are thrill seekers who take flashlights and ouija boards onto the sand; and some are the sensible breed of optimists who feel that, unless they see the scars of atrocities, they can fool themselves into believing that they didn't happen. None of these people last very long, and it's through no intervention on my part. They leave entirely of their own accord, often in greater haste than the passerby._

 _Why that is, I've never brought myself to ask anyone. I believe it wouldn't be worth the trouble, however; I'm sure I already know the answer. I've come to understand that your kind has a strange aversion to what could only be called 'evil', a trait curiously harmonious with your equally-prominent appetite for it._

 _It's one of the countless things I don't understand about you._

 _I suppose, for the sake of formality, that I should introduce myself. But what would be the point of that? You and I are nothing to each other. And anyway, you'd never believe me. That isn't me being callow, either; I'm simply speaking from experience._

 _All that I need to know about you is that you are a traveler of sorts, and all you need to know about me is that I am but a signpost. Figuratively, of course, but also somewhat literally as well. It is the purpose of the signpost to exist; a destiny that I share._

 _We differ in that, for whatever reason, my existence is seen by many as a crime._

 _I've never understood it, but then again I've never contemplated it; I am not malicious in any sense of the term. Perhaps, like the blowfly or the vulture, I am misunderstood for my tastes. As they are drawn to death and condemned for it, I too am drawn to tragedy. And no, not by any personal fetish or villainous intent; rather, simply by anatomy. It fills me with horror, loathing, but I can never bring myself to avert my eyes, no matter how grievously I yearn to. And it always leads me to you._

 _You both fascinate and disgust me, in all honesty. You are the warring insects that I observe, the car crash I can never look away from._

 _It is my condition, my inclination if you will, that brought me here. This land, this weatherbeaten road and all it encompasses, is the most wicked place in the world._

 _And, if I may be callous, that fault lies squarely on your kind's shoulders. But that could be said for just about anything._

 _Look up, please. Notice the sky here._

 _The clouds that drift through the lifeless sky here are disfigured, greatly so; bloated and hoarding, or emaciated and dehydrated. They never come here pure, and I watch them as they pass over me, frail and powerless to stand against the desert winds that scorch and tear them on their journey. I watch as some are blown apart, as others survive and drift onward out of my sight. I find that I pity the ones that survive far more; you'll notice, I said 'survive' and not 'escape', and that is for a reason._

 _Every cloud is unique, as is every star, every grain of sand, and every soul. All as singular as snowflakes, so isolated in their existence that they will often deny any threads of unity between them when asked. But there is no denial here, not of, at least, this one single and harrowing truth._

 _There is survival at Ephraim Ridge. But there is no escape. I know that better than anyone. Not for even for the clouds._

 _But, then again, this is not a story of clouds, or sand or stars. It is a story of souls. And calls and responses, and tin soldiers and eagles and blood and cherries and stone and fire and love and subalterns and survival._

 _If you will have it, I'd like to share it with you._

 _Take my hand, if only for a moment. Don't fear me, friend, for I am the tamest aspect of this tale, and there are many things ahead far more worthy of your anxieties. Walk with me down this road to nowhere, through this stillborn wasteland._

 _I wish to show you something._


	4. Day I: Sunrise (Part I - The Desert)

_We will start at the beginning, if one can be found._

 _You find me verbose, no doubt, but that does not concern me. I have much to say and all the time in the world to say it._

 _Let us begin with the children. We will find one here, far from my road and my ruined sky, in a locked room under the scrutiny of fluorescent lights and bleached lab coats. Like the seventeen others that were led into my arms, he was young, beautiful, and struggling like a trapped animal within his own skull. Like the clouds, they did not come to me pure._

 _Also like the clouds, I could only watch as they were destroyed._

 _Come see._

* * *

 **Total Reform:**

 **The Ephraim Atrocity**

 **Day I: Sunrise**

 **(Part I - The Desert)**

* * *

 **September 1st, 2015**

 **1559 Hours MST**

 **Olivet Memorial Hospital, Psychiatric Ward - Phoenix, Arizona**

~ From the **transcript of the Evaluation on Arlington Forbes**. Charles Hammill M.D. ~

 **Are you comfortable, Mr. Forbes?**

I guess so.

 **I'd like to ask you just a few routine questions, if that's alright.**

Okay.

 **Can you tell me where you are?**

Some hospital in Phoenix?

 **Correct. And what about today's date?**

I don't know. The thirtieth?

 **It's actually the first day of September. So about how long have you been here, do you think?**

Seven days, I guess.

 **Do you know why you were admitted here?**

They brought me here after it happened.

 **Who is 'they'?**

The police.

 **I see. By 'it', I'm assuming you're referring to what happened at Ephraim Ridge last week?**

[The patient did not respond here]

 **Mr. Forbes? Is that correct?**

Yes, sir.

 **I'd like to talk to you about it, if I could. Just for a moment.**

I don't want to. Actually, I'd like to go back to my room.

 **We don't have to talk about the actual event just yet, if it's uncomfortable for you. Would you mind just telling me a little bit about your experience at Ephraim Ridge prior to it? We'll stop after that, I promise.**

[The patient did not respond here]

 **Mr. Forbes?**

You can call me Arlo, if you wanted.

 **Would that make you more comfortable?**

It would.

 **Alright. Arlo, would you mind-**

Yeah, I would. But I'll do it anyway.

 **Do you remember anything in particular about Ephraim Ridge, prior to August 25th?**

Not a lot. It all just kinda... blurs together. I don't know if I can tell you anything you don't already know.

 **Whatever you care to tell me will be fine. Just do what's most comfortable for you.**

I'm not really sure where to start...

 **By all means, take all the time that you need. What's the earliest memory you can recall?**

They... took me.

It was the middle of the night, and these people pulled me out of my house and into the street. I almost got away once, but one of them grabbed me, and then they all started kicking me, in the legs and... in the chest. I heard my mom screaming, but my dad held her back. A bunch of them threw me into this white van, and then started driving.

 **Did you try to escape after that?**

I think I was handcuffed. But even if I wasn't, it didn't matter. I guess I was so freaked out that I couldn't move. I don't remember the ride.

 **What happened when you woke up?**

[The patient did not respond here]

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **0544 Hours (MST)**

 **Outside Ephraim Ridge - The Sonoran Desert, Arizona**

The sky to the east began to turn as though it had been punctured by the outline of the hogback beneath it, and the stars around it receded into a wound of red light. The twelve men at the gate and the woman standing behind them all breathed a collective sigh of trepidation. It was time.

The sun had officially risen on the first day of Total Reform.

The man in the center squinted against the rising light at his back, the chill of the desert night chapping his lips as he breathed. The last of the eighteen vans had pulled up, and they stood like a strand of dirty pearls in the distance, all of them waiting for his signal.

Ross Truman shook his head and spat a wad of chewing tobacco onto the ground between his feet. He almost felt sorry for the poor bastards, even if they had brought this on themselves. But no, there wasn't any room for that kind of bullshit here. These kids would learn that soon enough.

Wordlessly, he lifted the flashlight from his belt and flicked the switch three times, and the vans all flicked their headlights in response. The two younger men behind him began patting various areas of their clothing to check their own arsenal. Each of them had been equipped with mace, handcuffs, those special collars, and nightsticks; though Truman was sure he was the only one present who knew how to adequately use his weapons. Total Reform had scraped the bottom of the barrel for its employees, but then again beggars couldn't be choosers.

A woman's voice piped up, "Sir?"

Truman turned to face her. She was a squat, matronly-looking woman with a pale skin and blonde hair bound in a green kerchief. Like most of the rank and file, the Colonel hadn't told Truman her name, only her purpose. She would be serving as the assistant to their on-site medic. He wondered vaguely how she'd ended up here; surely she'd never been in the force, and there was no way in Hell she'd ever seen combat. She wasn't wearing a uniform.

Truman grumbled, "What?"

The woman blinked slowly. She didn't seem at all intimidated addressing him, which many of the onlookers found at least somewhat remarkable. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall, and Truman towered her with his beefy shoulders and sinewy limbs. Instead, she looked somewhat vacant, a curious absence in in her gaze that made a few of those present question her mentality.

"McLean told us to wait until the sun had fully risen."

At this, Truman broadened himself slightly. "What's your name?"

"Janine Falser, nurse practitioner," she replied. "People call me Jeanie."

Truman quirked an eyebrow. "Well, you're to address the Colonel by title while you're here. And, in his absence, I'm your superior. It's my job to make sure his orders are followed, and your job to keep your mouth shut. Are we clear?"

Jeanie looked somewhat insulted for a moment, and then reassumed her rank wordlessly. Truman raised his chin in indignation, about to bark at her that she was expected to respond respectfully, but then thought better of it. He was going to be doing plenty of shouting today; might as well avoid it when he didn't have to.

And anyway, the drivers were beginning to open the doors.

The officials watched collectively as their new charges were torn from their imprisonment, their respective drivers jostling and shoving them if they moved too sluggishly. In the dark, they all looked relatively similar; one girl attempted to fight, another attempted to escape. A young man began screaming for help. Any resistance, every insult, was met with a swift blow to the ribs or the neck.

In a few seconds, each one containing its own individual eternity, the eighteen inmates stood at the gate, each of them still chained at the wrists and looking at their captors with varying expressions. Surprisingly, they all had enough sense to keep quiet. Truman's lips curled into a sneer, and he moved in on them like a tigress might approach a wounded gibbon, keeping one hand firmly on his nightstick. He'd learned a long time ago to never underestimate a cornered animal.

"As of right now, you are all under the custody of Total Reform," he stated, the drill-sergeant authoritarianism seeping into his voice. "You will be fully briefed on the program shortly. Until then, you are to follow me."

No one present responded.

"You will move promptly and silently until we get to camp. Any deviance will be seen as an escape attempt and will be treated as such," his words were solemn, sincere, but the eighteen gathered before him again said nothing. Truman narrowed his eyes, his hand still hovering over his arsenal.

"Believe me," he chuckled. "You little shits don't want that."

A wayward lizard scampered into a crack in the earth. Truman turned eastward, towards the mountains far deeper into the desert. Behind him, he heard thirty-six feet scuffle as the drivers and officers guards herded the inmates into a makeshift formation. From the gate, there was the outline of a woebegone road that cut through the land.

"Get moving."

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **0955 Hours MST**

 **The Kovanah Reserve, Border of the Southern Quadrant - Ephraim Ridge**

The first hour of walking passed in silence. Shock, disorientation, anger, and fear all pooled within those present; each sensation invisible and each one penetrating an otherwise unobstructed numbness. While only speaking had been forbidden, it seemed as though the teenagers had established an unspoken covenant between them to not show any expression of emotion at all. They moved stiffly and uniformly, keeping their eyes ahead on the sunlight inching over the mountains they were hiking towards. Carmen recognized the behavior from a psychology pamphlet she'd read. Classic herd mentality, coupled with Forest Morgan-esque warrior mindset. But of course it was all done to hide, or perhaps attempt to repress, their own nervousness. If it were the case then-

A barely-stifled sniff, followed by an equally-unbridled whimper, tore her from her musings, and her eyes narrowed in irritation.

If the task was to hide fear, thought Carmen, the girl behind had already failed.

Pearly tears collected in the corners of her eyes and blew down her face in the wind, leaving icy tracks on her cheeks that she'd long since stopped trying to wipe away. Maybe she wanted to think that she wore her dejection with dignity, though the trembling of her lip and the scoffs of the others that passed her implied otherwise, but then again she couldn't really say that she cared.

"I'm alone..."

The girl whispered it to herself like an empress conceding surrender, and took a shaking inhale, and then another, and then another until she was almost hyperventilating. Carmen slowed her pace until her they walked side by side. The girl looked up.

"Oh..." she stopped sniveling at once and wiped her eyes furiously. "H-Hel-."

"Will you please stop it?"

Carmen's voice was as unleavened as ever, tinged only slightly from annoyance. The girl opened her mouth slowly, but Carmen cut her off.

"Unless you're stupid or something, then I'm sure you can guess that crying will make these subhumans see you as weak," she droned, matter-of-factly. "You're only going to make this experience harder on yourself."

"I-I understand, it's only-"

Carmen held up a silencing hand. "Arguing won't help you."

She turned away again, and her gaze snagged on what looked to be a cluster of abandoned houses. She slowed her stride momentarily, clicking her tongue. These fuckers had really done it.

"My name's Ana," the girl said meekly.

"Carmen," she replied distractedly. "You know this place used to be a reservation?"

"Was it?" asked Ana. She had made the effort to cease crying, but her eyes were still rimmed in a worrying way. Carmen nodded as though she hadn't noticed. "Total Reform. That program is set in a valley not far from here. When it went up a last year, they started ripping up the reservations near it for space. The natives were thrown out."

Ana placed a hand over her chest. She was a pretty thing, Carmen observed, in an unconventionally girlish way. Her hair was a hastily-dyed honey, natural in texture, and her skin was only a few shades of brown darker. "That's awful," she replied. "How'd you know that?"

Carmen shrugged. "I drove six hours to protest this place last year."

A quiet spanned between them, and Ana nodded slowly. It was strange to her, somehow; Carmen seemed far too direct, too emotionless, to engage in something like a protest. Perhaps Carmen picked up on this, because she quickly amended, "I needed to get out of town for a few days."

She looked away when a wren roosting on a crumbling patch of cement foundation caught her eye. She was about to ask where she was from, but when she'd turned back, Carmen had already walked on without her.

"Nice to meet you," Ana whispered to her retreating form.

Faye had made up his mind immediately to follow the sergeant's order; he was no idealist, never had been, and he wasn't about to start now. He could tell by the jeers of his escorts in the van, the bemused stares of the guards flanking him and the others, that there was already a target on his back. This knowledge sent a shiver down his spine, and he bit his lip to keep it from trembling.

Instinctively, his eyes drifted to the people he'd be sharing this new experience with. There seemed to be an equal number of males and females, many of whom were still wearing what they'd fallen asleep in. Faye himself was still in the shapeless sweatshirt that he loved for how it concealed his body, which was plenty more covering from the icy, sand-laced winds that lashed at them in the morning air. He winced sympathetically at the handful of boys in their underwear, one of whom was already stifling chattering teeth.

"So," a voice hissed in his ear, making him jump, "what the fuck?"

Faye turned to his left, catching at first only the artificial glow of blue hair in the dimness of the daybreak. Its owner - a small and amply-contoured young woman - looked at him with a cocked head and half of a smile. The orange of the sunrise turned her eyes a dirty moss color. Faye quirked an eyebrow; the coquettish smile she wore wrinkled the red rims and prominent bags under her eyes. She'd been crying.

He asked her softly, "What?"

The girl rolled her rolled impertinently, as though whatever she was wanted was entirely obvious, and Faye stifled a sigh. _Fucking manic pixie girls_ , he thought to himself.

"Keep it down," a guard demanded, brushing past them and knocking Faye's shoulder harshly with his own. The boy glowered at him, wanting more than anything to use one of the stones at his feet to pelt him between the shoulders. But no, for now, making enemies with whoever was in charge here would be stupid.

As soon as the guard was out of earshot, the girl scoffed and tossed her head back, her bluebell tresses ruffling in arid wind. "By process of elimination," she began, leaning over and whispering up into Faye's ear, "you're my new best friend here. That means I need to know how you identify."

Faye pursed his lips, and then relaxed them. The girl seemed earnest enough, though he couldn't be sure of her sincerity. "I'm a guy," he informed her, whispering in her ear. "But I'm really not into making friends right now, especially with a stereotype."

If his tone hadn't been enough, he had expected the girl to at least take this hint. Instead, she didn't look the least bit put off by his terseness. If anything, she looked somewhat bemused, as though he'd just said something incredibly stupid.

"My name's Lana," she whispered a playful smirk, as though she hadn't heard him.

Faye kept his eyes ahead, and Lana scoffed again before quickening her pace slightly, leaving the boy to his brooding. Her eyes meandered around at the other condemned souls around her. By now, the group had assumed a formation of small, separate clusters; each one contained by the loose ring of guards on the outside of it all. She and Flame (or whatever his name was), had gravitated toward the back, away from stronger-looking ones. She felt rather thankful that she'd slept in her nightgown - or rather, an oversized concert tee that she'd used as a nightgown - when she looked forward at the head of the configuration, wearing only a pair of boxers and shaking slightly from the dry cold.

He was an obvious alpha-male; if his raised jaw and intimidating stride weren't dead giveaways then his prominent musculature certainly was, and already she could see a few of the others gravitating around him like flies to a corpse. A dark-skinned girl in lavender lingerie and a boy with a ponytail were already using his vascularity as a distraction from their situation. Another girl looked as though she was maneuvering herself to use him like a shield, always darting into his shadow when the guards made a sudden move.

As could be assumed, the other two flanking the boy couldn't care less about what he was thinking. Their eyes were focused on his perfectly-sculpted ass.

The girl in the lingerie sent the boy with the ponytail a knowing side-glance, and he returned it. Neither of them smiled, but both felt decidedly safer when they gravitated together. The girl was the taller of the two, the boy being decidedly sylphlike with long legs and compact musculature. Much like a few of the others that the girl had seen, his blue eyes were rimmed red from what she could only assume had been crying, and she bit the inside of her cheek in awkward empathy.

"Bastion Davenport," the boy whispered to her, checking to make sure there weren't any guards within earshot. The girl quirked at eyebrow at his pronunciation; it sounded vaguely similar to the way her mother might've said it, but decidedly posher.

"Armistice Reeves," she replied. "Most people call me Cissi, though."

Bastion offered her a small smile. She spoke with a dialect that he recognized from a trip he'd taken to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. "You're from the Big Easy, I take it?"

Now it was Cissi's turn to smile, her's maintaining a smugness. "Proud Creole."

The young man nodded. He could see her heritage in her; her serene, dewy-looking eyes, and her mane of tightly-curled dark hair bound in a beautifully-embroidered headscarf. "New England, myself," he said softly.

Cissi nodded back. The two of them continued their trek, an awkward silence setting in that smothered any camaraderie when the reality of their situation set back in. Both of the retrained their eyes on the boy before them, their interest in his back muscles decidedly muted.

Cissi leaned over a final time. "What do you think he's thinking?"

 _I knew what he was thinking, of course. I always do, even for the tough cases._

 _And if Arlington Forbes was anything, he was the poster child for tough cases._

 _His mind was in ten-thousand pieces, scattered around the globe that was his history. Some of his attention was focused on the events of earlier, on the throbbing reminders of the blows he suffered; others were focused on blows he suffered long ago._

 _He gave surprisingly little concern to his current situation, until of course he was made to._

 _Watch._

Marley Rose looked up. After three hours of walking,a length of time which she could surmise by to the sun's ascend, it seemed as though they'd reached their destination. if it could be called that.

The eighteen of them stood in their makeshift cluster in the center of what looked to be a cross between a summer camp and a testing ground. There was what looked to be a ramshackle mess hall before them, and then two barracks to their left. To their right, so enough in the distance to be blurry, was a garage, a flagpole, and a few other little huts of indiscriminate purpose. Their surroundings were walled by karsts and sand dunes flecked with chaparral and cacti.

She was a willowy girl, the fault for which fell to both genetics and personal demons. She felt rather like a parasitic gnat of some sort, darting in and out through the shadow of the beefy young man in front of her. Compared to her slight frame, he was a giant; all toned muscle and fine lines. He would've been beautiful to her, if not for the effort he'd taken to appear intimidating. Metal bars pierced much of his face, and the entirety of his arms and shoulders bore a tapestry of skull tattoos.

"Hey."

She seized up immediately when a guard approached her and rested his hand on her shoulder, leering in the same manner the men who pulled her out of her house earlier. She swallowed and tried to wrench out of his grip, but he only tightened it. She kept her eyes ahead, fearful and disgruntled; this was exactly what she had been hoping to avoid.

"You're not bad for a ricer," he said. He seemed to get angry when she tried to pull away again. "Where you going?" he asked her, and his tone made the hair on the back of her neck bristle. She was already in deep shit, no reason why she shouldn't defend herself-

"That's enough."

The pierced boy had stopped in his tracks, halting the entire procession. He faced the guard with his shoulders cocked, his stance equally lethargic and poised. The guard narrowed his sunken eyes.

"Keep your ass walking," he spat, but his voice didn't come out half as commanding as he'd hoped. All of the other inmates had stopped in their tracks, those closest to him had assumed what he could tell were combat stances and those farther rounding on other officers. Marley swallowed, they were one misstep away from an outbreak.

The air was as tense as strung wire, emotion crackling through the aether like electricity. Truman alone, from his spot away from the action, looked on with an air of relaxed intrigue.

Arlo, grinning a small grin of malicious triumph, moved toward the two of them slowly. Marley sent him a look that said plainly, _I don't want your help_.

"Is that why you've been using me a sun visor?" he asked her, as though somehow reading your mind. Then, bluntly to the guard, "Take your hands off her."

"If I don't?"

He sneered and tightened his grip, and Arlo leaned backwards ever so slightly. It seemed to be a rally, a call to arms, when the young man's fist connected squarely with the guard's jaw. He fell like a stone onto the earth, and then two other guards leapt forward and tackled both Arlo and Marley to the ground; the former cackling and screaming profanities, the latter snarling and trying to pry herself free. Both Lana and Cissi - as well as a blonde girl dotted with freckles - looked to ready themselves to join the brawl, but the other guards started pushing them back. Marley, with surprising voracity, wrenched herself from the restrainers and scrambled, screeching, to her feet and leapt at the guards detaining Arlo.

 _There was something about Marley that you should understand: any doctor would tell you that she was fully capable of speech. Her vocal chords were not scorched by smoke from a house fire, nor was her tongue carved up by an abusive lover. She chose to communicate solely through yelps or hand signals for another reason, one that I fear I cannot explain through medical terminology or, indeed, any terminology at my disposal. But, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it._

The Earth-shattering clamor of a nearby gunshot cut through the chaos and everyone present stood as though petrified as a thin ribbon of smoke curled into the air from a pistol pointed skyward. Marley backed up slowly and inched her way back to the others, only to be stopped by another official. Three others had Arlo on the ground, one on each arm and other on his chest, holding his face into the dirt by his chin. The boy looked up, staring but not seeing, his breath shallow and his body slack against the Earth. Marley remained on her knees beside him, looking down at him as his assailants scrambled to assume ranks.

Truman straightened his spine and barked at no one in particular, "Stand at attention!"

All the inmates that were able, and a few of the guards who didn't previously know the protocol, obeyed.

The owner of the gun upturned his lip. He was a tall man, brawny in every sense, giving off an aura of aggression that commanded unquestioning respect. Those present regarded him with trepidation and lowered gazes, all of which was reflected back at them in the dehumanizing mirrored sunglasses he wore.

Truman inched forward slightly, "Sir-"

"I'm disappointed, Truman," muttered the Colonel, striding past him and thumping him lightly on the cheek with the butt of his gun. His voice was a certain kind of unsettling, a curious mix of gloating and aggression, a warlord surveying the spoils of battle. "I trusted you to get them here in one piece."

By the time he'd made his way to the inmates, the guards had already lined them up and assumed their positions behind them. The man that Arlington had slugged leaned on another for support.

The teenagers all fought the instinct to draw back as he approached them. Many of them expected him to simply seize one of the smaller among them and swallow them whole. None of them found the smile he gave them at all pleasant.

"Welcome to paradise, kids," he said, almost amiably. "Let's not mince words, alright. You're here because you fucked up. We're here to fix that."

If it were possible, the silence he was met with was even more reproachful than it was with Truman. Whatever mask they'd worn to disguise their fear seemed to crumble in this man's presence.

"You're Maxwell McLean, aren't you?"

All eyes turned to Carmen as she folded her arms at her chest. Her's was the only face to display no emotion. McLean flexed his fingers. "Colonel Maxwell McLean, U.S. Special Forces."

For a moment, the two seemed to size each other up. Marley looked from one expression of seamless boredom to another. This girl either had balls made of platinum or a death wish. Carmen cut her eyes one final time, as though she were looking through the behemoth before her. Her own blank face looked back at her from his sunglasses. Then, she retook her place in line.

The Colonel scoffed slightly before resuming. "Most of you have probably heard of my son and his reality show. Total Reform is based much in the same way. The day starts at sunrise; you will assemble here for morning runs. That's two laps along the perimeter along the desert, which is about triple the length you just walked. At twelve o'clock noon, you will begin your daily challenge, much like Total Drama."

This time it was Cissi who spoke up, though her voice trembled somewhat more noticeably than Carmen's had. "So, we're meant to compete?"

Make no mistake about it. The next twenty days will be the worst you will ever experience. You will be worked harder than you have ever been worked in your lives. But at the end of this experience, you will be reformed into functioning members of society."

The Colonel stopped momentarily when he passed Bastion, and Cissi and Marley both picked up on how his expression changed when he eyed the chain strung around his dark neck. It was gold, though no one could be sure how real it was. The Colonel didn't look like he cared too much either way; maybe it was simply custom, but that was them being optimistic.

Bastion seemed to understand before the command was given. "C'mon, man, this was my brother's..." His fingers came to rest on the pendant, a small ten-point pentacle enclosed in a golden circlet, protectively.

The observant might've noticed the vein pulse suddenly in McLean's neck, but Bastion didn't. "Hand it over." Then, to everyone, "That goes for all of you. Anything you don't medically need and don't want taken by force."

Everyone complied, reluctance evident, and after a moment each inmate found themselves feeling all the more naked without their rudimentary possessions. Ana covered her mouth with her hand and bit down on her lip.

The Colonel continued. "You will each receive one of these," he pulled what looked like a dog's collar from his belt. "This will serve as your tracker while your here. It will also alert you when you are summoned for challenges, as well as serve a few other functions."

This time, it didn't take skills of perception to note the change in the Colonel's tone. Anyone who'd seen his son on television would've recognized it; the same hardly-repressed glee at the thought of pain.

From her place on the ground, Marley swallowed at the device in McLean's hand. Her memory flickered images of Pakhitew Island on her aunt's television, a certain episode in particular.

She remembered those collars.

A double-crossing twin and a chicken that couldn't be lied to had made it all seem so theatrical, so lighthearted with only a minuscule nod to the dark undertones. But now, here those unsettling details were, staring them all in the face without the smoke and mirrors of television. This was wrong. It had been wrong then and it was wrong now. The only difference was that now, it was too late.

"The Hell's wrong with you?"

Marley's head snapped up. McLean was standing over Arlington, looking down at him with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity. Arlington looked back at him, barely registering the threatening presence over him. Marley began frantically scrambling through the red dirt around her. At the boy's silence, McLean's neck pulsed again, and he brought his heel of his boot down on Arlington's exposed stomach.

"I asked you what the-"

McLean looked down, Marley had taken hold of his sock and held up the broken end of the tab that the guards had broken under Arlington's nose. Pieces of it rested between her fingertips, turning them an irritated shade of red. McLean clenched his fists.

"They used that on him?"

Marley nodded, withering slightly under his direct gaze.

He sent another sharp gaze in Truman's direction, and then nonchalantly clamped the collar around the younger man's lolling neck.

"I'll snap him out of it."

Somewhere, in the mushy haze that whatever that chemical was had turned his mind into, Arlington registered what was about to happened. He made a vague noise of protest, a lifeless jerk of his cement-like limbs. McLean clicked a remote. His collar made a curious whirring noise. Before he could draw breath, his very bones, every leaden muscle, were consumed in white-hot fire. He flailed helplessly under the man's boot as his body spasmed outside his control, jerking as though pulling by invisible, flaming wires.

Just when he was certain that the pain would kill him, it vanished, and he rolled over onto his side, tucking his limbs into his chest like an insect.

He registered faintly a dismissal and the scuffling of feet, and then the demand that no one touch him. He willed himself to stand, though his body refused to listen. His head flashed images of white stucco and an immaculate garden, of lavish getaways and disapproving glares from the man rich enough to banish even the most stubborn of cases, and then finally to the forbidden memory of a boy struck dead in the street, his exposed ribs forming a grotesque homage to the wings of an angel.

A single tear grazed an eyelash and then dripped onto the clay beneath his face as he and seventeen others shared a single, all-permeating thought.

This was home now.

* * *

 **Arlo? What happened when you woke up?**

[The patient did not respond here.]

 **Arlo?**

I want to stop now.

* * *

 _Let us all stop here for now. Forgive me, but I must rest a moment._

 _This is not an easy story to tell._


	5. Day I: Sunrise (Part 2 - The Lake)

_"Can you believe he's come back?"_

 _"Notice who isn't with him, though?"_

 _"Both of you, stop that! Honestly, making light of something like that... atrocity."_

 **October 3rd, 2015**

 **1134 Hours MST**

 **First Baptist Church of Christ - Midland, Texas**

 _I stood silently as the congregation shuffled into their seats to the chimes from the belfry. Contrary to belief, there is nothing about my nature that forbids me from entering a church; indeed, I've attended many a wonderful sermon in the time that your kind and I have known one another. I find that there is usually an element of peace to places of worship that I cannot find elsewhere. Perhaps it's the familiarity betwixt the judgmental, or the effort taken on the part of your brethren to suppress that thirst for wickedness we spoke about previously. Personally, I believe it to be the fulfillment that churches offer on your quest for stability. The sacred versus the profane, as Eliade would say. I say this simply because that comforting aura was lacking on this particular Sunday, and the only correlation that I could see was that there was no hope of stability to be found here._

 _Understandably so, I suppose, to be fair. As many amongst his flock would tell you, this was Reverend Brown's first service after his leave of absence._

 _Most of the parishioners loved the Reverend, whom most of them referred to affectionately as 'Brother Harry'. He and his family had been active in the church his entire life; it had been Harry who'd scrimped and saved out of pocket to save the church during the recession; his loving wife Evelyn working herself half to death organizing fundraisers and potlucks all the while. He was a man respected throughout Midland, even after that nasty business with the fire._

 _It was his actions against his family that marred an otherwise-unblemished reputation._

 _More specifically, his daughter._

 _You'll meet her soon enough._

* * *

 **Total Reform:**

 **The Ephraim Atrocity**

 **Chapter I: Sunrise**

 **(Part II - The Lake)**

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1132 Hours MST**

 **Medical Building, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

He was the last one in line. He got to hear every last one of them scream, beg, for their last shred of dignity. Of course everything went ignored. Then it was his turn.

"Turn around, strip down, and put your hands against the wall."

Bastion laughed ruefully. "You won't see anything you like," he responded softly. "I'm all used up."

The medic looked at him coldly. "I'm not gonna tell you again."

He did as he was told. It was almost okay; he didn't cry as much as he thought he would.

"What's the matter, fag?" someone jeered. "Thought you'd like it up the ass."

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1148 Hours MST**

 **Barrack Washroom, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

The washroom between the two barracks reeked of heated urine and age that the new, cheaply-made fixtures couldn't disguise, and she found that she could only breathe without gagging if she did so through her mouth. The floor was soaked by the water that oozed from the plywood walls and dropped from the exposed pipes in the ceiling, mildew accumulating in the corners where the light filtering in through the windows couldn't reach. The inmates had been allowed an hour of exploration before the challenge, she had come in here for the mirror, and for at least a slight reprieve from the heat, but she found neither of these needs met adequately.

Caroline Sumito stood placidly before the dirty glass on the wall, the streaks of grime on its surface distorting her reflection. With trembling hands, she ran her fingers over the smooth plastic of her new collar, withdrawing them as though burned when it gave off an agitated-sounding whir at her prodding. McLean hadn't specified, but she trusted that it would shock if it sensed a removal attempt.

 _I'm still me,_ she told herself _._ But she wasn't, of course. The girl in the mirror had her slight frame, her smiling eyes and her dragonfly tattoo, but it simply wasn't her.

How had it come to this? she wondered, as her hazy reflection glowered back at her. Perhaps it was the filth marring it, or maybe just her own dejection, that stopped her from seeing when a boy approached her from behind, eliciting a small scream from her when he snatched her from behind, clasping a hand around her mouth. She twisted like a rotor in his grasp, desperately trying to clamp her teeth around the callouses forced against her lips and land her heel in her attacker's groin simultaneously.

"Stop moving," he commanded in her ear, and she was surprised to hear more panic in his voice than expected. After a moment, he released her, flinging a light-colored something onto the opposite wall, heaving a rusted soap dish after it. It landed with a thud that Caroline couldn't hear over her own ragged breathing.

Without offering an explanation, the boy pushed past her and turned the tap on the faucet, wrinkling his nose when the water came out yellow, waiting a moment for it to clear before placing his thumb under it and never once speaking. Through the despondence at her situation and the residual terror from the assault, Caroline felt a hot surge of anger bubble up from her chest.

"What the _Hell_ did you do that for?" she demanded, much less forceful than she wanted to. Her entire body felt numb and weightless, as though she'd just finished vomiting. The boy kept his eyes narrowed at the stream of water and the slow drip of blood from his finger. A few seconds seem to pass before he registered Caroline's question, and he distractedly jerked his head to the lump on the floor.

Caroline turned. A small scorpion the color of a dead leaf twitched feebly in a murky puddle. The soap dish had smashed into one side of its body, tearing off three legs and ripping a hole in its side.

"Bark scorpion," the boy said offhandedly. "It was on your shoulder."

The thought sent a tremor down her spine and Caroline drew her arms around herself. Despite herself, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for both the creature and the boy. "Thank you," she said, begrudgingly but sincerely. "Did you get stung?"

The boy withdrew his hand with a look of slight relief, the wound already scabbing over. "Nah. Thought I did, but I would've felt it by now. You probably just scratched me."

Caroline had a rudimentary knowledge of bark scorpions and their painful venom from her father's field guides, she knew the boy had done her a favor. Still, the accusatory note in his tone annoyed her. "Hey, I didn't ask you to-"

The boy turned off the water. "Apology accepted," he said, cutting her off. And extending his dry hand. "Sakushi Hasu, by the way."

He was a relatively small young man, though he was taller than her just-shy-of-six feet, reedy in both body and feature. His eyes were slanted similarly to hers, hinting at an Eastern origin, as well as similarly dark hair, though his was bound in a haphazard ponytail of some sort and streaked with indigo. Now that he'd turned to face her, she could see that most of his right ear was missing.

 _Caroline had, like the rest of the country, followed the news religiously for a few days - as people tend to do when a particularly jarring or bloodthirsty story is released to the public's maw. The pretty news anchor had girded on the most dramatic of expressions as she recounted what people worldwide were tuning in to hear._

 _"New details today in the arrest of famed international forger Sakushi Hasu, believed to have been involved in at least four different underground counterfeiting syndicates as well the the murder of around ten civilians..."_

She swallowed dryly before whispering. "You're the criminal from the news."

Hasu didn't seem to care about the look of terror he received. Indeed, he barely seemed to notice. "That's me," he scoffed absently, still studying his finger. "World-renowned con man pegged in this rathole of a country. Tell me, when they ran that story on me did they at least use a decent photo? Haven't had my picture taken legitimately in a while."

His oily tone conveyed an apathy that his body language contested, and Caroline was about to respond when both their collars released a horribly high-pitched whine from a speaker underneath their left ear.

"All inmates report to the lot in front of the barracks," Truman's voice demanded. Without waiting for his answer, Hasu brushed past her and back out the door, cradling his ear with one hand and muttering obscenities in a language Caroline didn't recognize. She was about to do the same when a wet-sounding scuffle pulled her attention to the back wall again. The scorpion was still trying to pull itself up with its pincers, flecks of pale blood oozing from the wounds in its side. There was no plausible way it would live through the injury, or even escape the small puddle it was mired in before it expired.

It didn't react when Caroline knelt down to it, and she bit her lip. It seemed somehow too cruel to just leave it there.

She braced herself and grabbed the soap dish from its resting place by the arachnid. Its remaining legs were already starting to curl beneath it as she raised the metal plate over her head.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1200 Hours MST**

 **Courtyard, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

He had been pulled from the van next to the one Dante had been in, but of course he hadn't noticed him at the time. But that changed.

His actions caught the artist's eye during the walk and he had watched him with fascination since, unable to truly look away; whether that be from genuine interest or the pressing need for a distraction, he hadn't bothered to discern. He'd vaguely registered one of the guards call him 'Cypress', or something of the like, but then again his name didn't matter. None of their names mattered, really.

Even now, standing before their captors, Dante kept the boy in his periphery, training his eyes on the smaller man's coppery face when opportunity struck. Certainly, he was beautiful in the boring, traditional sense - his jawline was sharp enough to shave plaster and his hair, mused as it was, was the exact shade of ebony - but that isn't what piqued his interest.

 _Something you should know: in the long run, it didn't matter what you did to make Dante Coleman notice you. You merely wish that, whatever it was you'd done, you hadn't done it. Most people were conscious in their efforts to prevent him from taking interest in them._

 _His interest, much like the boy himself, was dangerous. Deathly so._

Caroline slipped into place slowly, wiping her hands furiously on the shirt she'd been given. All the inmates were required to wear uniforms, they'd been told. A grey t-shirt and faded blue jeans during the day and a white tank top and black shorts for nighttime, as well as three pairs of undergarments per inmate. Truman had explained that they were expected to keep their clothes clean, though the only means of washing them were a few spigots behind the barracks and a box of lye pellets and some glycerin. Footwear was a pair of beaten, pleather boots that were to be confiscated at night to keep them in their barracks.

After a moment of silent stewing, all eighteen inmates stood in what appeared to be the center of camp once again. The staff formed a loose ring around them, Truman at the forefront and twirling a remote in his hands. No one mentioned his eye, which had mysteriously become black and swollen.

"Ten- _hup_!"

The inmates had half expected the Colonel to dress for whatever challenge that they would be competing in, or at least have the gall to be there to explain the objective. Of course, they also knew not expect any pageantry either; this wasn't a television show, the striations burned around Arlo's collar were reminder enough of that.

Regardless, none amongst those present could help but feel underwhelmed when McLean didn't show up dressed in some stylized, appropriated garment indicative of their task. He rode up to them from the small garage in the distance in some rust-eaten, doorless automobile with an American flag mounted on the top, the kind that recalled to mind something a skinhead might drive to the gym. It would've been laughable, it was so stereotypical, had they not already been taught to fear this man. Everyone drew themselves up as Truman had when he dismounted, his boots shaking dust from the ground on impact.

His mirrored shades gleamed in the sunlight as he approached them. "Most days, there'll be a morning workout before the challenge, but out of the sheer goodness of my heart I'm lumping the two together for today."

Perhaps they should've laughed; he was clearly trying to be funny, but not in an amiable way. More of a ' _I control your every breath_ ' way. Arlo buried his hands inside his pockets, shrinking back more than just noticeably. Only one inmate dared to open her mouth, muttering something fiercely and inaudibly underneath her breath.

 _She was praying. You may see that as insignificant, I know I would. But for much of her life, prayer had worked for Julia Brown. Or, if it didn't, she never said so. Her father and his parishioners would see such deviance as her second inexcusable offense. It would fail her here, and I could've, should've, told her that. I would've, if I thought she'd have believed me. I wish now that I had._

McLean continued, "You'll notice that this valley is about seventy miles both ways. There's nothing but desert anywhere beyond this," he motioned generically to the opening in the chain-link fence that surrounded the barracks and the other buildings. "I would hope that would be enough to dissuade any attempts at escape attempt, but then again I'm a bit of an idealist where you little shits are concerned."

The inmates squinted against the sunlight as their eyes followed the outline of the outer fence. Unlike the chain-link number that encircled the campground, this one was much thicker and crowned with a spiral of barbed wire even more daunting than the one they'd seen in the entrance. It rose higher than most of the buildings, and vanished over the horizon in both directions. The spikes on the wire were taller, thinner, and more numerous. A few already looked to be decorated in flecks of rusting red. The inmates returned their gaze to the Colonel when he spoke again. "Your challenge today is a lap around the outer perimeter. No stopping, no resting, and no talking. Today, you learn the techniques for getting around this place. If you don't get it by today, then you aren't allowed to use it."

"How does that help us _,"_ demanded a new voice.

At first, everyone's mind flicked back to Carmen, but this one was livelier and more shrill; its coldness less logos and more pathos.

McLean stopped dead and snapped his head over to the group. His dissenter this time was a young blonde with a fringe-cut and green eyes, he'd recognized her from earlier when he'd confiscated a ring she was wearing. She was so thin that he collar barely squeezed the snowy skin of her neck at all.

 _Savannah Warren. An agitator by trade and an unfortunate adrenaline-junkie by blood. By the time she sounded, her resolve to stir the pot was adamantine; not even electrocution could sway her._

"I mean, it's stupid to tell us a technique and then expect us not to use it," she amended, standing her ground as he approached her. "Regardless of what it is, instinct would-"

"Instinct' is a really lazy word," the Colonel interjected, his voice even, which no one had expected. Savannah wrinkled her nose, confused as to both what he meant and that her impudence didn't seem to trigger a reaction. The guards pressed in, leering.

None of their smiles faltered as they each pulled a loaded pistol from their belts. Ana burst into noisy sobs once more when Truman stepped forward. His fingers were lazy as they clicked off the safety and fondled the trigger, and even lazier when he raised the muzzle and pressed it to the center of Savannah's forehead. The troublemaker kept her face blank, but the erratic pulsing in her neck betrayed what she was trying to hide.

"Instinct got you here. Instinct might tell you to stop. To disobey," said another guard, and he sounded almost encouraging. A nauseating combination of a youth pastor and a drill sergeant. His eyes glinted in a way that a sane man's shouldn't. "But we'll take care of that."

Savannah looked over to the Colonel and attempted to inflate herself, but the fear in her voice made it sound pitifully like someone trying to inflate a punctured balloon. "He's holding a gun to my head," she whispered. "That can't be allowed."

McLean chuckled. "Something to remember, bitch. We own your ass, and it really isn't smart to make enemies in here."

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1342 Hours MST**

 **Inner Perimeter of Ephraim Ridge - Ephraim Ridge**

"Move it! C'mon, you fat fucks, move it!" shouted the guard over the rattling hiss of his ATV. Lauro Aihara curled his fists with a snarl, he would've given anything at all to simply grab him by the lapels and toss him off that bike. Even the chance to do so would've been worth shedding his place toward the front of the line. For someone who'd been fleeing from things for most of his life, Lauro had never enjoyed running, and this particular instance was the closest he's been to Hell in quite some time. The actual walk to Ephraim had been considerably chilly and arid, the wind seemed to chap his entire respiratory system and sand it blew was coarse enough to actually scrape his bare chest. But at least they'd been allowed to move at a reasonable pace and they had a road - if one could call it that - to follow. Now, the sun had been up for hours and the heat had long since leeched all of the sweat out of his skin and into the neck of his shirt, and the ground was so coarse and uneven here that his boots seemed to catch on everything.

The path they'd been instructed to run took them from the gate through the bare desert

He quickened his pace and held his tongue until the guard sped on, a good deal of his ass drooping over either side of the seat. He had no right calling anyone fat.

"Fucking _shit_!"

Lauro whirled around and immediately blinked away what he was sure was a heat-induced mirage. There were two inmates behind him; both males, one remarkably broader than the other. The smaller of the boys was on the ground, struggling to regain his breath and pull himself to his feet with his right arm. The other stood over him awkwardly, his chest expanded threateningly and, in Lauro's opinion, needlessly. There was no way the boy on the ground could've taken him; he must've been at least a foot shorter and roughly half his weight.

Not to mention, his left arm rested about five inches away from him. Lauro forced his lip not to curl in revulsion.

"We're fine, man," he said offhandedly, drawing back slightly and puzzling Lauro further. He easily could've taken the kid missing an arm if he'd had a mind to, but it would've been suicide to take on the bigger one. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly over his collar. They hadn't been provided with sunscreen, and Lauro's pallor had already begun to burn.

"You, uh, know I'm not a guard right?"

The other boy squinted. "Y-yeah," he muttered, a bizarre sort of fierceness enveloping his tone. "Of course I fucking know that."

A kind of light went off in Lauro's head. He'd seen the boy fumble in the darkness after he'd been removed from the van earlier, his massive form overtaken with guards so that he looked like a drugged circus elephant being forced from its cage. He'd managed to wrestle two of his captors to the ground before reinforcements arrived. One of them ripped a cane out of his hands.

He couldn't see.

"Todd, right?" Lauro asked, somewhat shakily. He'd heard one of the guards call him that, or at least he thought he did. Out from under them, the armless boy recollected his prosthetic and sped on without looking back.

Todd broadened himself further, recalling to Lauro's mind a hooded cobra that had been cornered. "Yeah."

Lauro nodded disarmingly and held out his hand. "Lauro Aihara."

All Todd could really make out of the figure that approached him were sharp angles and the glistening sheen of sweat. He kept his eyes trained on the lignitic spikes of the boy's bangs, hoping it could be misconstrued as eye contact.

 _At that moment, though he didn't know it, Todd Nickelson was at a crossroad. The most dangerous one he would face, sans one other, in fact._

The Roleplayer kept his eyes constant, his small smile concealed. But he couldn't stop his pointed chin from raising ever so slightly. Even with his considerably limited vision, Todd didn't like what he saw. He looked to the hand outstretched before him, as though only to acknowledge it, and then continued on his path with a scoff.

 _Though he wouldn't learn until far later, Todd made the right choice. I wish I could say he'd be so fortunate the next time._

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1327 Hours MST**

 **Masterson's Landing, Outer Perimeter of Ephraim Ridge - Ephraim Ridge**

How had she come here? She tried to remember.

She had been ahead of the others, even found what she'd assumed was a halfway point before anyone else. A guard had told her she was allowed a ten-minute rest and even a small drink of lukewarm water from a small metal tin. Once that had ended, her head had been down as she ran, only registering the change in landscape when the sparse grass at her feet tapered off into more compacted dirt. Now, it appeared she had lost the path, and any claim she might've had to having a shower, but honestly she couldn't say she cared any longer. Not even the threat of the Colonel's gun could rouse her, and her legs seemed come to a stop outside of her control.

When she looked up, the scene hadn't changed. Her eyes surveyed the expanse of weathered trees she had somehow ended up in. Certainly not a forest, certainly not natural. She may as well have wondered how it had gotten here rather than her.

 _She knew, deep down, what she had done to make it to Ephraim Ridge after all._

Julia had heard of this place only once, in passing. Her mother was watching the news on the little flat-screen monitor they kept on the counter in the kitchen when she'd come home from school. Her mother had her eyes fixated on the screen, her hands continuing to snap beans like clockwork. People on the screen had their faces twisted into snarls at the gate, screaming about the injustice of such an establishment on sacred land.

Juli knew of the plight of the Kovanah people, her father had used them to illustrate the Diaspora in a sermon once. NARF had attended, as had Black Lives Matter and a few well-known celebrities. She would've given anything to be there at the protests, but now all she wanted was just to go home.

She just wanted to go home.

With a shuddering exhale, she lowered herself to the ground. Suddenly, it was as though her lungs had relinquished every last bit of air within them. Her vision swam, her very bones seemed to tremble, as everything she'd been feeling fought to escape her. Her mother screaming, her father holding her back, as men wrestled her to the ground in a chorus of shrieking and laughter. A single tear sprung from her eye as though it had been punctured, followed by another, and then another, until she was left shaking and hyperventilating in the dirt.

"Pardon?"

The woman standing over her was so rigid, so pruned, she wondered how she was able to walk without her limbs snapping like branches. Skin so thin and pursed that it could've been bleached leather constricted her bones underneath the blue-bombazine frock she wore, and her red-painted lips were cinched so tightly that Julia found herself somewhat surprised she was able to move her mouth at all.

"Pardon me," she said again, this time more haughtily. "Have you seen my girl?"

Julia swallowed past the lump in her throat and tried to blink away her tears. "I haven't," she replied simply.

Whatever response the woman had expected, Julia had clearly given her the wrong one. She tossed back her head with an irritated moan, fanning herself with the back of her hand. " _Splendid_ ," she boomed, her voice shaking a flock of roosting birds from a nearby outcrop. "I ask her simply to go and fetch her father, and she goes and vanishes. Off with that loathsome Havisham and those redskins, I'll be bound. You see if she isn't."

Julia blinked. The woman turned to her. "Why are you here?"

"I shouldn't be."

"I should say not," she retorted accusingly. "You're trespassing on my husband's estate."

At this, Julia raised her head. Her mind flicked back to the Saturday afternoons she spent working with her father's older parishioners, and the signs she'd come to pick up regarding those who's minds were beginning to go. But this woman's eyes were still sharp, no doubt in her expression. Nothing about her gave any indication of senility, and yet Julia couldn't help but wonder how stable her mind was. Certainly, she hadn't seen anyone who wasn't affiliated with Total Reform since her arrival, and there was definitely nothing resembling an estate nearby.

"I take it you live here, ma'am?"

The old woman guffawed, "That's Mme.," she corrected incredulously. "I am Madam Mara Osbourne. My husband is the sole benefactor of this parish and I will be spoken to with the proper respect."

Julia flinched, "Please, don't shout at me," she whispered. The tears returned to her eyes as she muttered, "it's been a very hard day for me."

She had hoped her tone didn't sound too pathetic, but the way the woman before her deflated told her that it did. "You aren't from here then, girl?"

Julia shook her head. "No, Madam. I'm simply trying to get back to camp. I think I'm off the path, and I'm a bit lost."

"Encampment?" Mme. Osbourne asked. "You mean that new poorhouse they've put up in the valley?"

"Poorhouse?"

The woman regarded her quickly _, "_ Do pardon me. I meant no offense, my heart simply breaks for you poor wastrels these days. But you see, my girl goes off cavorting with the common folk without a care in the world, not even considering the danger it poses to her prospects."

A sense of unease crept into the air. There was something definitely the matter with Mme. Osbourne, if that was indeed her name, and Julia considered bringing her back with her for help. Was it possible that she'd escaped an assisted-living facility nearby or something? But then how had she gotten herself into the middle of the desert?

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Julia said finally.

"No." Mme. Osbourne sighed, looking her up and down with a sympathetic derision. "No, I suppose you wouldn't, poor dear. Maintaining a pure bloodline is difficult, especially in this godless depression."

There was a tone to her voice that Julia didn't like. One that seemed rather critical of her upbringing and, most unfortunately, the color of her skin. Mme. Osbourne waved any potential response she might've given her with an airy wave of her hand.

"At any rate, if you truly are attempting to get back to the poorhouse by a certain hour, I suppose I could allow you to use our walkway. At least then you avoid Lake Lazuli."

At the mention of the lake, Julia inclined her head. The old woman must've assumed ignorance, because she lifted her chin in a small nod. "It used to be, that is. It's just past this gully, but it's not much more than a seep these days. It isn't wise to be running about there, with the hollows."

Julia returned her nod slowly. She assumed that 'hollows' meant sinkholes, which was more than disconcerting. Her mind flicked again, this time to quicksand. She knew it wasn't likely she'd find any here, but the idea still made her anxious for the others. Lake Lazuli made her nervous in general.

"A shame, really," Mme. Osbourne continued. "I'm told it was once the most beautiful oasis."

 _The old woman was not wrong. Lake Lazuli was once the most beautiful sight in North America. But you and yours have a curious way of tainting even the most wondrous places beyond what can be redeemed. Julia, and presumably all the other inmates, knew a great deal about the place to which Mme. Osbourne was referring._

"Well," Julia replied, picking herself up with an awkward, curtsying gesture. "I appreciate the direction, ma'am. I really should be going."

Osbourne clucked softly, something about impudence, under her breath, but waved her off anyway. "Yes, I suppose you should," she amended, before turning away herself. Julia was just about to test the pathway when she heard her clear her throat again.

"A bit of advice," said Mdm. Osbourne, still facing away. "Beware the livestock that make this place their home. They're not good company, much of them. I've found it most prudent to avoid them."

There was a general rustling noise like someone brushing a tree limb aside and, when Julia turned back, at least six different questions on her lips, the old woman had vanished from sight.

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1341 Hours MST**

 **Lake Lazuli, Northern Quadrant - Ephraim Ridge**

This was the place she'd read about all these years. It was larger than she'd expected, somehow more real than she anticipated, than she'd hoped.

The soles of Lana's boots squelched in the peat below them, every step tentative in case the mud had covered the weaker places in the porous earth. This was the place where they died. Where all of them died.

"It doesn't feel right," someone muttered, and Lana whirled around. Standing there, clutching a bundle of blooming weeds, was the the boy she'd seen earlier. "Fancy seeing you here. You know, you're off the path."

Lana nodded. "I could say the same to you."

Faye gave her a brief look of apathetic acknowledgement. "So you know? About the..." He tapered off, twisting the plants in his hands. Lana gave him a half-rueful smile. "I did a project on the slaughter when I was in the seventh grade. My teacher sent a note home," she said. "I was always into the weird shit, I guess."

"How unsurprising," Faye remarked, passing her. His once-pale face was flushed incredibly from the running and Lana could count at least sixteen individual heads of sweat against the slickness of his cheeks and forehead. "Still, fucks me up that they could do that."

His footsteps were much more deliberate than hers as he moved, as though he knew the land somehow. Lana bit her lip; she wasn't trying to set off one of the guards by straying, and continuing forward meant she was trespassing on a graveyard.

"You comin', stereotype?"

Her head snapped up at this, just in time to see Faye toss the plants into what looked like a massive tear in the ground.

"The hell is with you and calling me that?" Lana asked as she approached him, feeling almost somewhat offended this time. "Being into alternative fashion doesn't make me a stereotype."

"Everything else about you does."

"Excuse me?!"

Faye didn't seem to hear her. Instead, he merely watched as the darkness within the pit consumed the small votive he left. His expression was so ominous a passerby might've wondered if he'd just pacified some vengeful, chthonic god. Lana looked over his shoulder. Her indignation was quickly replaced by a morbid curiously and, though she'd never admit it, the faintest tingling of unease. Below them, the pit smelled of old earth and neglect, of death.

"That's Lake Lazuli down there, isn't it?"

Faye continued to stare. "Yep."

 _Most schoolchildren could tell you as well as I. Better, perhaps, because they tend to linger on more details than I do. I never saw much reason to pay attention; deaths stop being interesting after you see enough of them._

 _Lake Lazuli predated Ephraim Ridge. It sat in the dead center of the salt flats that made up the valley's northeastern-most border. Once upon a time, it was an oasis inhabited by a small group of missionaries who'd wrestled it from the Kovanah people. But it wasn't famous for that, nor for the eternal vigil kept by a kettle of turkey vultures denied a feast by the darkness._

 _It was famous because, in 1892, the entire settlement vanished - homes were demolished, the school that had been established decimated, and only one clue remained: the rotting bodies of the villagers' children in the lake. Each and every one of them had their throats cut in the unmistakable shape of a ten-pointed star. To this day, though everyone thinks they do, no one knows how the people of Lake Lazuli met their gruesome end._

 _No one, that is, except for me._

The clamor of approaching footsteps and an ATV pulled them both away from their solitude, and the two of them migrated slowly back to the pathway.

"You think it's still down there?"

Faye looked at her. "The lake? Probably. No real reason for it to recede any further. Desert lakes usually don't."

Lana shrugged. "I'd wanna leave, if it were me."

"It's a lake. It doesn't care."

Lana looked back over her shoulder pityingly. From the changing angle, the ground looked almost frosted in the midday sun, patches of salt and mud creating the image of a giant, glazed doughnut, the hole in the center being the chasm at which a flock of children supposedly rested. She turned back to Faye before perspective was able to distort her illusion.

"Y'don't care about much either, do you?" She asked him genuinely. "Not really?"

Though he kept moving, something within Faye seemed to pause, and then he shrugged it off. "Isn't much to care about, I guess."

"Why?"

He would've pushed on, if it weren't for the sudden, overwhelming loneliness that the idea of mortality seemed to impart on him. Even with all her annoying nuances, the stereotype was a far better alternative to his own anxiety, at least for now. Faye turned back to her, brows cinched. "There just isn't, okay?"

He tensed his face into a glare that Lana seemed to be entirely impervious to. She looked back at him with an expression that was somehow both blank and knowing.

"Stealing," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"That's how I got here," she responded simply. "I'm a klepto, clinically diagnosed, and I couldn't stop myself from getting caught."

Silence was allowed to bloom between them for a moment, interrupted only by the approaching sound of the guards and a few overhead screeches that Lana suspected belonged to the birds circling them overhead. One descended like an angel and helped itself to the nearby corpse of a deer mouse.

Faye said nothing, and then, "Why did you tell me that?"

Lana responded in the most shocking manner possible. "I trust you."

The Rabble-Rouser stopped in his tracks as Lana ran ahead, ambivalently whistling a staccato leitmotif that he couldn't place. Neither of them noted that there was another inmate present, watching them from afar. They hadn't heard everything, but they'd heard what they needed to.

The information gathered was more than enough.

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1351 Hours MST**

 **Outermost Perimeter of Ephraim Ridge, Eastern Quadrant - Ephraim Ridge**

Salvation. Fucking salvation.

"Get the lead out, bitches!"

More wheezing cackles from the man on the ATV. But nothing, nothing, could puncture the elation rising in Sakushi's chest. Praise be, to every god he didn't believe in, at what he just saw.

"The fuck are you smiling at?"

He half-expected the guard to have pulled up, but it wasn't. Instead, his addresser was the girl from earlier. Now that she didn't have a gun to her forehead, she seemed at least somewhat more relaxed, though her eyes darted back to the gun, and every few steps her breathing pattern would change in indication that she was still dealing with symptoms of terror. Still, she'd roughed it out remarkable better than he'd hoped, and that kept him from ignoring her.

He offered her a small smile against the sweat beading on his cheeks. "Savannah, right?"

The girl beside him sent him a snide side-eye. "You're the master thief they won't shut up about?"

Sakushi grinned. His reputation always managed to precede him. "That's me."

"Figured you'd be scarier."

She cut her eyes and smiled at him in a tellingly coy way, and Sakushi wondered vaguely what the protocol for sex would be here. His libido climbed further when she swung her hips at him teasingly as she ran ahead.

"I found a way out," he muttered to her, when he caught up. Savannah tossed back a head full of blonde tresses.

"We're in the fucking desert. Nothing but sand for miles, you'll dehydrate out there if you don't freeze overnight.

Incorrect, sweetheart. We're exactly thirty miles from the city of Bisbee, where there's a train station. That's how I got here."

Savannah looked disappointingly unimpressed. "You realize that you're a prize to these motherfuckers, right? They'll never let you go."

"Fuck that," he chuckled derisively. "They haven't built a cage that can hold me yet, and way better men than these mouth-breathers have tried."

He'd since caught up to the girl and turned to face her, keeping ahead of her by running backwards and increasing his vigor when she tried to pass him. Eventually, she relented and gave him a searching look.

"Well do tell, then," she demanded with aspersion. "What's our plan?"

"What?" Sakushi asked, certain that he'd misheard her over the sound of blood thumping in his ears. But the look she gave him put two and two together. "Oh, you're crazy if you think I'm taking you with me."

He tried to distance himself once more, still going backwards, but she refused to allow the gap between them to widen. Sakushi raised an eyebrow; this bitch was nothing if not determined.

"I'm not rotting in here for the rest of the summer," she spat. "That Colonel is a psycho, he'll probably end up slitting our throats in our sleep."

The Conman chortled. Just like people like her to get all freaked out over a few empty threats. She must've picked up in this, because when she spoke again her tone had lost its sense of urgency. "Besides, you'll need someone good at distracting people, and I'm pretty good at that."

"How do you- oof."

Something tore his back leg out from under him and sent him tumbling onto the compacted clay below. It was hard enough to knock the breath out of him, and the ground was coarse enough to tear the first layer of skin from his forearm. He swore as he raised himself up, and Savannah slowed herself to a girlish flounce as she finally overtook him.

"Oh yeah, there's a branch there."

Before he could stand again, she was gone. He took in her stride as she left him, laughing. She was pushing herself too hard, liable to burn herself out before she got too far. Still, maybe...

"Get your ass up and get moving!"

The rumble of the ATV approached, and the sound of a gunshot sent the Con-Artist scrambling to his feet and darting off, his ears burning and his teeth clamped around his tongue. His fury was only abated when, with a feeling of fresh elation, he looked back to the chink in the wire fence behind him. To most people, the odds were too great. The risks were indeed supposedly insurmountable; capture, thirst, losing his way. But Sakushi was used to running away. He could prepare, organize.

He'd be gone by the end of the week.

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1422 Hours MST**

 **Outside the Total Reform Campgrounds, Southern Quadrant - Ephraim Ridge**

By the time Julia had made it back to camp, only one other person was there. It was a young man, stooped over on all fours, panting like a wounded animal, and looking decidedly pleased with himself despite the redness of his face and the racking of his shoulders. His breathing sounded painful, worryingly asthmatic, and Julia almost considered searching him for an inhaler. The triumphant grin on his face looked entirely maddened, appearing even more so alongside the blood-red dreadlocks hanging like fungal ropes around his face. From a distance, it looked as though his brain was being forced up through his follicles.

"Are- Are you..." Julia began, her own chest burning from exertion, "are you alright?"

The boy looked up at her, still smiling. "Won-"

He cut himself off with a wet-sounding gag and doubled over, retching, and barely giving the girl enough time to leap back. His throat contracted painfully, nothing in him but a small mouthful of bile to bring up. He spat onto the ground, and then his coughs turned to a dark chuckle.

"First place," he ground out through clenched teeth, extending his hand. "I'm Dante, by the way. Or Red, whichever you prefer."

Julia swallowed at how fitting a nickname it was before sliding her hand into his. His palm was incredibly calloused and warm; not the cold, slimy texture that she was expecting, but only somewhat less unpleasant. "It looks like I'm second," she muttered offhandedly.

Dante opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by the arrival of the others. The leader of the pack was the boy he'd seen earlier, the mud streaks on his face all but sweated off. Behind him were three others; the blue-haired girl and her friend, and the one-armed boy from before. The boy who'd gotten shocked and the mute girl lagged behind them.

"Took you shits long enough."

Marley sent the guard that approached them a curious look that went unnoticed to all but Dante and Arlo. It was a curious, considering stare, as though she wanted to know what color his internal organs were and wouldn't mind peering inside to find out.

 _It wasn't odd. Everyone there had had the thought since arrival. But there was an absence there that drew them. There was no regard to life, no humanity, that implied any hesitation would stall her if she truly decided to kill him. It seemed out of place on such a meek, placid canvas; a doom painting on the wall of a nursery. Arlo swallowed any response, Dante's lips curled in a way that made it crystal clear how pleased he was_.

More and more streamed in past them until, once again, there were eighteen faces assembled before the guards. Savannah looked positively livid that she'd come in so close to losing. Sakushi, who'd returned far sooner, sent her a snide glance that she responded to with a raised middle finger. If it weren't for the brunet boy lagging behind them, his hands shoved nonchalantly in the pockets of the faded jeans he'd been told to wear, she would've been last.

"Taking your sweet time, Davenport?" the guard mumbled. Bastion said nothing at first, then he grinned.

"Couldn't run my mascara, hon. It's a weakness all of us fags have."

Whatever volley back that the assembled mob might've offered was swallowed by the arrival of the Commandant's jeep. His approach was met with the silence that the inmates were quickly learning followed him at his heels like an animal.

"Line up. First two winners at the front, the rest of you fall in rank behind them."

 _As was expected, no one objected. But, given what would happen in two days thanks to this particular development, someone should've._

McLean seized both Julia and Dante by the forearm and pulled them forward. "These two get to shower tonight. The rest of you wash up behind the barracks," he stated. "Before that, they get to choose whom they want to work with tomorrow."

Much of those gathered seemed to understand the allusion. Teams were an essential part of Total Drama towards the beginning, after all. Julia hadn't expected such a development, seeing as their purpose here wasn't for entertainment. She looked over at Dante, who looked back at her with a raised chin. "Ladies first," he said with a small bow. The Colonel instructed, "Three at a time."

Julia took in her options. Including herself, her team would consist of nine. She had no idea what challenge would be, or how to adequately cover her bases. When the Colonel headed her a list of names, she chose her first teammates at random. "Hasu, Sakushi. Reeves, Armistice. Jackson, Miles."

The selected three nodded and took her side. Julia handed over the list.

"Keli'i, Cygnus. Davenport, Bastion. Aihara, Lauro."

The muddied boy looked up as Dante motioned them over. Lauro looked decidedly pleased at his new designation. Julia retook the list; all of the boys Dante chose were all very intimidating in some way. The remains of Cygnus' mud, regardless of the symbolism, looked considerably like war paint now. She solidified herself.

"Arlo, Marley and Todd."

Dante sniggered at Julia's choice under his breath. One of the strongmen she chose got his ass zapped. The other, judging by his movement and how Lauro cracked a leering smile, clearly wasn't as capable as she assumed him to be. But the others she had chosen, whether or not she intended, had all proven themselves clever or unpredictable. He knew as well as anyone that he couldn't rely solely on brute force, especially when both Bastion and Cygnus had annoying looks of gentile compassion written on their faces. "Carmen, Savannah, and... Caroline," he said.

Julia looked at the remainders. She had a fairly rounded team, now. Who else should she choose?

"Faye and Lana," she said, having noted that the two of them were at least somewhat friendly. Perhaps camaraderie would be if nothing else a decent morale booster. Dante looked at his scraps. One was the first bitch to cry, the other was some girl he hadn't noticed yet and had to search the list for her name.

"I guess that leaves me with you too. Ana Gomez and... Christ, how the hell do you pronounce this name?"

The girl folded her arms. "Arielle Mayfield," she said, somewhat off-put. "Its French."

Dante curled his lip and hissed, "I didn't ask. Get over here, both of you."

The two did so, rather sheepishly. Julia regretted not picking either of them, her guilt only slightly absolved when a few of the inmates Dante chose offered the girls whatever smiles they could muster when Dante turned away, muttering something under his breath. "So, how does this work? We name ourselves?"

The Colonel gave a derisive snort. "You can call yourselves whatever the fuck you want, I don't care. You got your teams for the competition, that's all that matters." He remounted his jeep and revved the engine, sending a belch of black smog from the exhaust. Carmen shook her head, the asshole had actually taken off the restrictor plate. "Group therapy in an hour. You don't come, you don't eat dinner. Truman," he snarled at his lieutenant, "get'em back to the barracks before she gets here."

The new teams began their second trek, many of them panting, all of them clustering behind their new leaders. Savannah flung a clump of clay at Ana when she sniveled again, and Carmen immediately pulled the girl behind her, glaring.

Miles Jackson, with his prosthetic sliding off his elbow from sweat, noted how the psychology had shifted. They'd gone from sparing sympathies and quiet evasion to battle mode. Both teams now had a defined enemy in each other. Tomorrow, whatever the challenge, promised a bloodbath. He didn't need to be around for that, nor did he deserve to.

He had to act now.

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1521 Hours MST**

 **Amphitheater, Total Reform Campground - Southern Quadrant, Ephraim Ridge**

Dinner was canned chili, iceberg lettuce with watered-down ranch, and corn chips. It was served outside, in a ramshackle grotto flecked with scraggly weeds and wooden benches that went largely ignored. Instead, many of the inmates chose the ground, in isolated groups or without companionship entirely. Carmen chuckled at the psychology of it all. Of course, it was a fear response, a prioritization due to the current environment of food over companionship. Hierarchy of need, Maslow would call it. They looked like little animals.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

Carmen whirled around, it was the girl from earlier. She replied incredulously, "Why?"

Ana fidgeted. "I... well, I didn't really want to eat alone, I guess."

A silence spanned between them for a moment, and Carmen understood her motive. It had been her glare that stopped - or at least quieted - the derisive comments Dante had made about her and Ari; her willingness to let her walk back beside her that kept her weak ass from crying. She batted a fly away from her food, and Ana lowered herself. "It's fine if you'd rather not eat together!" she said quickly. "I can go sit somewhere else."

"What the Hell is the matter with you?"

All nearby eyes were drawn by the outburst. Lauro and Dante, one of the few instances of conversation to be found, both stifled grins. The People Pleaser shrank. "I-"

Carmen cut her off, "No. I'm talking, you're listening. You need to toughen up, you know that? I'm not here to protect you, and no one is going to piggy back your ass tomorrow. You fuck up, you drag us down. And I can and gladly will kick your ass if that happens. Clear?"

The Realist never once raised her voice, but Ana looked at her as though she'd just struck her. She nodded slowly, blinked furiously, and shuffled away from the girl, leaving her food abandoned. Carmen huffed; she hadn't wanted to be so harsh, but damn it, she wasn't that little fool's knight.

"That was incredibly rude."

Another girl who'd been sitting off to the side rose now, and Carmen pinched the bridge of her nose. Whatever Ana was - weak, vulnerable, annoying - the girl to stand looked to be equal, the only difference apparently was that she wasn't willing to own it. "That goes for you too, Princess," she snarled. "I'm not getting my hands dirty over a hindrance."

"She isn't a hindrance," Ari interjected. "And neither am I. We aren't any less capable than you are."

A sharp guffaw tore their attention to Lauro, who'd risen to his feet. "I saw you out there, stumbling like an idiot. All you've been capable of is bawling like infant since you've been here."

He encroached the two of them. Ari stood her ground. "There is nothing wrong with being scared here. It doesn't make us any weaker than you."

"Maybe not," Carmen said, folding her arms. "But everything else does."

 _This was true. Even I had little to say concerning Arielle at first, other than that her name was French in origin and that she had a penchant for Wartime-Era aesthetics. She was the most unlikely amongst my brood to harbor any ill will, it seemed, even if provoked. I watched the scene before me expecting her to be my first casualty, but I was denied._

Every emotion brewing between them came to a screeching halt and short-circuited. All three offenders crumpled to the ground as their collars sounded, gasping. Those watching jumped back. Cygnus clapped his hands over his ears.

On the stage in the center of the amphitheater, Truman twirled a remote in his hands. "That's enough," he said disinterestedly, which was somehow far worse than the laughter from the guards. At his side, looking only somewhat more fazed, was a woman none of them had seen before.

"This is Ms. Clarke," he informed them. "I'll hand this over to her."

The Clarke woman moved in front of him and addressed them with a prim, forced smile. "Hi there, everyone," she chirped. "Like Mr. Truman said, I'm Madeline Clarke, and I am a social worker for the state of Arizona. I've been asked to oversee group therapy for Total Reform. How's everyone enjoying their first day?"

 _You could've understood their mistrust of this woman, regardless of her wide smile and stenciled, seemingly approachable, manner. The garish red pantsuit she wore and the ladybug-shaped broach she dressed it with could not disguise her affiliation with Ephraim Ridge. Surely, even you could see this._

 _But here is something you do not see, just as the inmates did not, until it was too late anyway: Madeline Clarke was no social worker, nor was she send by the state. She was indeed called there, but by something else long before Total Reform got a hold of her._

The woman smiled further at their silence. "Well, the important thing is that you're all here."

They weren't all there; Ana had gone off and the three inmates still were not back on their feet, but she seemed to not notice. "My goal," she continued, "is to help you all return to your homes and your lives as soon as possible. I want us all to be able to work together to get you all back on the right track. So, if everyone wants to get in a semicircle around the stage here, we can get started."

The inmates moved slowly, all of them watching as guards yanked Lauro and the girls to their feet. Ari's mouth opened in short, sharp gasps, and Carmen looked at her derisively. As they moved, she alone noticed the red gemstone on her ladybug pendant when her collar vibrated ever so slightly, as though it sensed an oncoming trigger.

It wasn't a ruby. It was a button.

 _There were plenty of things Madeline Clarke would lie about in the coming weeks. But one truth, the only truth, she had to give was given here. She was there to help, to help these, in a way that she hoped they would someday understand, someday forgive._

 _In twenty days, her body will dangle lifelessly from the flagpole. I wish I could say that the inmates weren't responsible. I wish I could say that she didn't deserve it for what she was planning._

 _I can say neither of those things, however._

As she moved, Savannah felt something thump against her ass, and she whirled around to see nothing. It took her a moment to register that something thin and metallic had been left in her back pocket.

When he passed her, Sakushi gave her the tiniest of winks.

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1843 Hours MST**

 **Boy's Barrack, Total Reform Campground - Southern Quadrant, Ephraim Ridge**

The barracks were one of those odd places in which reality finds itself the least bit distorted. A combination of shell-shock and residual anger, disorientation that had been delayed for too long, laced the stale air. They had all expected they'd be made to sleep on beds of nails, and the basic - though relatively well-kept - cots that met them were jarring in their contrast. The first thought that crossed Dante's mind was the the drab grey of the walls would've made a great canvas, and he recalled with a fresh sense of loneliness his backpack full of spray paint back home.

Dante finally approached him when he walked in. "Cygnus, right?"

The boy nodded, avoiding his gaze. Dante still couldn't place his racial background; from his skin and hair, he would've guessed something Pacific. Any and all identifying facial features that he might've had were flecked with residual dirt like aged china plates.

"Did you rub shit on your face?"

This time, Cygnus shook his head, his eyes lowering. Dante cracked an icy smile. "It's fine if you did. Give yourself a nice infection, let it turn into an abscess, and they send you home in a wooden box."

"Leave him alone."

Both boys turned. Bastion stood in the doorway.

 _Cygnus Keli'i was the only one amidst my collection who wasn't stolen from his own bed. Ephraim's budget couldn't allot transportation from Hawaii, and so like a sheep to the slaughter he was brought by his own father to a checkpoint in Oregon where he would be picked up._

 _As chance should have it, there was one other inmate in the van that claimed him. He'd been silent at the time, but something happened in that van that would bind these two until the end of their respective lives._

Dante blinked. He'd only been kidding, certainly, but the look he was receiving put him off considerably. "Whatever, man," he huffed eventually, and then strode out of the room. He had a reward to indulge in.

Bastion relented his glare only when the ironclad door closed. He moved slowly over to what was supposed to be his bed for his sentencing. It was an old, grey cot with canvas sheets folded at the foot, and the pillow looked so flat he wondered if they'd run it over beforehand. How the hell long were they expected to stay in this shithole, he groused, and then slapped a bead of sweat rolling down the back of his neck. It would be sensible to make the bed tomorrow, provided they allowed him to shower then. He hated feeling so filthy.

"You can have mine."

Bastion whipped his head up. Cygnus cleared his throat. "My shower, I mean. I'm not going to use it," he said softly. "You can have it, if you wanted."

A sparring silence passed between them. Bastion wanted to smile at the sentiment, but it seemed too good to be true; and he'd learned from experience how things like that often turned out. And regardless, the Islander needed a shower far more than he did. "That's nice of you, but you need to clean your ass up," he said. "You're covered in dirt."

"I don't want it," the Transplant said simply.

There was a sureness to his voice that Bastion had heard once before. "I mean..." he started to say, "if you're sure."

Cygnus had only just turned away when Bastion asked him quietly. "You want to join me?"

* * *

 **August 5th, 2016**

 **1845 Hours MST**

 **Masterson's Landing, Eastern Quadrant - Ephraim Ridge**

He had expected this part of the camp to be empty, good for clearing his head, to at least get some semblance of bearings on his new surroundings. He'd allowed himself to hope that he'd find something, anything, to use as an outlet for what he was feeling.

Instead, he found her.

Not for the first time that day, someone at Todd's feet shot him a look he couldn't make out. He could feel it however, the cold irritation directed at him. He met it with his trademark, shit-eating smolder. On the ground, gathering up her things, Cissi gave him an annoyed huff.

"You scared the shit out of me, _coullion_ ," she said, feeling along the ground for the things she'd dropped. "The fuck are you? Blind?"

It wasn't meant to be an insult, he knew. An insensitive, ignorant, figure of speech and nothing more. Even so, he couldn't stop his blood from boiling any more than he could stop his foot colliding with the small altar that the girl had built.

"What of it?" he spat back at her, hoping he was glaring in the right direction.

Cissi leapt up and seized him by the lapels, gripping so hard that her nails dug into his skin through his shirt. Their faces were close enough to where he could make out the winded rise and fall of her chest in the dim of the candles he hadn't managed to knock over. Briefly, he wondered if he'd have to fight her.

"You better give me one good fucking reason why I shouldn't mess your ass up."

Todd stared, unflinching, back at her. "What if I am?"

"What if you're fucking what?" Cissi snarled.

Todd set his jaw. "What if I'm blind," he muttered, just audibly enough to be heard. Cussing released him, softening her gaze ever so slightly in a way that made the capillaries in his neck tighten in anger. "Beats being some backwoods little _tortue_ like you," he ground out. "What are you even doing out here, praying to one of your demon gods?"

He'd expected his words to strike her, provoke her, but if they did, she didn't show it. Instead, she released him, her face etched into a contemplating half-grin that Todd couldn't see to make sense of.

"So, you're from Louisiana too." Cissi mumbled. There was no mistaking it. _Tortue_ was a an insult that the people of the mainland reserved solely for Cajuns. It was a slang term that implied a dirty pussy, or having been born from one. Figures, she thought briefly, that that particular insult would follow her here on the heels of a white man. "Ain't no one else knows that term."

Todd looked away, the sudden evenness to her tone took him aback slightly. "Baton Rouge."

Cissi snorted as she went back to work on her altar. "Figures that you ain't never seen the Baron before."

"I've never _seen_ anything," Todd reminded her sharply, still considerably annoyed. Cissi continued construction instead of responding, and the Blind Bat's curiosity seemed to get the better of him after a moment. "What Baron?"

"Baron Doubye," Cissi responded impatiently, fumbling with her lighter.

Todd squinted at the pedestal. It was made of brown slats that he took to be scrap wood from one of the many dismantled houses around them. Resting atop it were six dirtied church candles that looked to have been stolen from the medical hut and the strangest wooden carving Todd had ever laid eyes on. He couldn't make out any details, but the shape stood out to him; something akin to a man and an alligator simultaneously.

"Is that like... Your Satan, or something?"

Cissi clucked, "Don't have a Satan. Just like I don't have a Hell."

"So... it's free reign then? No good and no evil."

At this, the girl seemed to pause and consider her answer. "Ain't no good, I know." she said. "Can't speak for everyone. But I do this for the same reason I do everything else: because it benefits me. Maybe that's good, maybe it isn't. I can't say I give a shit either way."

Todd said nothing, he obviously wasn't supposed to. "Evil, now," she continued, "I know that's real. But I ain't got any use for a burning lake to put it in or a spirit to blame it on."

Somewhere, far away, Todd issued the sound of a clamor, but paid it no mind. An icy gale of wind snuffed out two more candles. The remaining one glistened in the Cajun girl's pupils as she turned to face him.

"There's no greater evil than man."

Todd stared. In the darkness, he could almost make out fire, a faint and shapeless streak against an otherwise intransigent black. But in that faint echo he saw everything he would've given anything to forget. He turned his head.

"So. Doubye?"

Cissi looked at him, indignation evident. "The _Baron_ Doubye, gives protection in times of crisis, and he brings gifts if you know how to pay him," she said, grunting in satisfaction when her altar had been reestablished. "Good ones, too."

Without any further explanation, she withdrew a clump of fragrant grass from the pocket of her jeans, lifted it to her lips, and ignited it. It fell from her hands and onto the pedestal in an erratic writhing motion, as though trying to escape the embers consuming it. Todd allowed himself a small chortle in spite of his discomfort, and reached into his own pocket.

"Here," he muttered to the Cajun, extending the rabbit's foot. "Make a wish for me too."

Cissi shook her head. "Ain't how it works, coullion. You gotta do it."

"Can I make a wish?"

Both of them whirled around, half-expecting a guard to be standing over them. Instead, they were met with one of the inmates whom both of them had seen, but neither had bothered to speak to yet. She was somewhat small physically, with yellow-green eyes and ratted auburn tresses that looked as though they weren't used to sitting naturally. Her expression was curiously vacant, almost sedated, in a manner that strongly reminded Cissi of the pills her mother took for anxiety. She stood awkwardly, it only just dawning on her that she'd just admitting to eavesdropping.

Maybe it was the scare she'd given him, or maybe it was the genuine sincerity in her tone, but Todd found himself laughing derisively. "Here," he said quickly, chucking the rabbit foot at her. "Just take mine, if you believe in this bullshit."

Movement, especially in darkness, was hard for him to pick up on, but Todd was able to sense the mood change without his sight. Part of him almost wanted to apologize; he would've had he not been aware of his surroundings. Pleasantries were a show of weakness, and weakness was suicide. He knew that better than anyone.

The Soubrette rose to her feet. "It isn't bullshit," she retorted. Then, to the girl, "Who are you?"

"My name's Ari," she replied sheepishly. "I'm sorry if I interrupted something, or-"

"You didn't," Todd cut in. "This _tortue_ was just wasting my time."

Ari seemed to shrink as she watched him go. Cissi's shoulders rigidified at his retreating form. "I really am sorry," she mumbled when he'd vanished. "I merely thought it was interesting."

"Because that's all my culture is to you people, isn't it?" Cissi spat as she blew out her candles. "Just some fucking parlor trick, right?"

"No, of course not!" Ari interjected. "I simply meant-"

But Cissi's wouldn't hear her. "I know what you meant, bitch," she snarled, and then she was gone too.

Ari sighed as she looked down at the altar, thin ribbons of smoke curling upwards into the haze. Cissi's lighter slumped innocently against the base. She wondered if it would be effective, or dangerous, to perform the ritual herself. Would she even know what to do?

Lips pressed together, she steeled herself and lifted the lighter from its resting place and watched as the small flame consumed the trinket, dropping it onto the herbs as she'd seen Cissi do.

"I don't know who you are," she whispered to the votive, and the way the light of the flames contorted its image made it look almost like it acknowledged her. "But I'm willing to come to you, if you'll have me."

Another shift as she knelt down, as though the thing were nodding, and she found that the altar seemed far more alight than it did with the candles. Arielle allowed herself a deep, slow breath. She took no notice of the boy watching her from the trees, even though it would be he who answered her prayers instead of the Baron.

"Whoever you are," she mumbled to the effigy, "I need your help."

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **1855 Hours MST**

 **McLean's Office, Total Reform Campground - Southern Quadrant, Ephraim Ridge**

His blue-grey eyes would die with him.

During set-up, at night when all of the demolition crew had left and the guards had gone of to their temporary homes, he contemplated this often. It was, in essence, the perfect reminder of his own mortality. Both of his sons had had them, but Chris lost them as he aged. And then, Anton...

He sighed over his brandy.

"Sir?"

McLean turned and scowled immediately. "Off to a good start," he groused at the man before him, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "What the hell kind of stunt was that with the ammonia tablet? If I hadn't snapped the kid out of it, he might've lost brain cells, or worse. We can't afford screw ups like that right now."

Truman set himself. "That boy was huge."

"For God's sake, Truman, he's a damn white kid from the suburbs." McLean retorted, draining his glass. He rounded on the man before him and, despite the noticeable size difference, Truman inclined his head submissively. McLean twisted his mouth as though he'd just eaten something sour.

"You pull shit like that again, you're out of here. I have no loyalty for cowards, you know that," he told him, retaking a seat at his desk. "Now what do you want?"

"One of the inmates wants to speak with you."

If it were possible, McLean looked even more displeased. Typical that he'd have his first complainer before the inmates (and his) first few hours of downtime even started. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Send'em in."

Truman gave his boss a final look of self-reproach, like a scolded pet looking to its master, before nodding and stepping out.

 _Ross Truman was amidst McLean's compatriots during America's occupation of Afghanistan. Both were older and grizzled at the time, and both of them disenchanted with serving under someone so young and so compassionate. At the risk of being called unsympathetic to the army, I will concede that McLean's reasoning was almost, almost, understandable._

When Miles Jackson entered his office, McLean wasn't looking at him directly. He caught the boy's slight form, his shaggy mop of dark brown hair and his pale complexion, out of the cold tent of his eye. It was disengagement, not malice, that acknowledged the boy as the Colonel's eyes stayed locked on his computer screen.

"Grab me that bowl on the cabinet."

Miles bit the inside of his cheek, his eyes leaving the man before him and moving up to the cabinet at the opposite end of the room. The bowl in question was a large one made of heavy-looking terracotta clay and painted with tribal symbols. He couldn't see what was inside.

"Now, cadet," McLean said, still not looking up from his computer, and Miles steeled himself. He picked it up carefully, carried it with considerable difficulty, and set it down harder than necessary, and only then did McLean look up.

"Be car- oh," he cut himself off, and then said nothing.

It really had been disengagement. McLean honestly didn't see that Miles' entire left arm was prosthetic.

McLean blinked. "What's your name, son?" he demanded, his voice unleavened.

"Miles Jackson," he responded flatly. Some flicker of recognition must've appeared on McLean's face, because he amended, "You toured with my father."

"I toured with a lot of people, a lot of fathers," McLean replied. "That's a pretty common last name."

Miles shook his head adamantly. "He was your commanding officer in Afghanistan. General Marshal Jackson. He told me to ask you for help."

 _Marshal Jackson was anything, anything, but common. McLean knew this better than anyone. Remember that, you'll want to know it later._

It was all McLean could do to ask, "Did he?"

The Amputee nodded. "He's worried I'm here."

McLean scoffed. "I bet... he had a kid. And you ended up here? That must've hurt."

Miles snapped his head up, his teeth around his tongue again. He shook his head quickly. "That's the thing. I'm not supposed to be here," he said urgently. "I mean, I shouldn't be."

The old man didn't seem to notice the shift in tone. His fingers crept in a steady rhythm over the keys of his computer. "Says here that you were convicted of breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, and-"

"I know what it says, sir," Miles interjected. "But I didn't do any of that, you have to believe me."

Innocence had been Miles' defense from the beginning. He'd held onto it in court, in processing, and in sentencing. Every lawyer had a solid case, every jury had only been swayed by a single member. McLean had read over his case file as he had with all the court-ordered inmates; he knew this. But he still didn't believe him.

He gave a dry laugh. "You expect me to believe you over a court sentencing?"

Miles didn't said anything. He didn't have to.

"I'll admit," McLean continued, "when I saw your name on my roster, it made me remember your father. I had no idea you were his kid, of course, but I guess now it doesn't surprise me. I always said he could've used a firmer hand when dealing with insurgence. Never thought it would've extended to his kids, though."

"My father is a great man," Miles said softly.

"I don't doubt that." McLean had risen now, walking around the boy. Miles kept his eyes ahead, their gazes locking when he Colonel strode into it. "It's just a shame that you ended up here, is all I mean to-"

"I just told you, I'm not supposed to b-"

McLean reared back with his hand raised, and Miles was only a split second too late in seeing what he was doing. The Colonel's hand cracked across his face so hard that it, combined with the shock, sent him stumbling back. He took a few deep breaths, gently pulled a lock of hair away from his struck cheek, and returned his glare to McLean. The old man raised his chin.

"A word of advice, it's not a good idea to interrupt your commanding officer."

 _This, too, is important to remember. But perhaps I should confirm what you've already inferred. McLean knew more about Miles than the boy realized. Far more. I wish I could say that this knowledge saved either of them._

 _This, too, I'm certain you've inferred. I've said it quite a bit recently, after all._

 _I cannot._

Neither's glare wavered, even as McLean shifted his own tone. "Look, you're obviously a resourceful young man," he said, somewhat appeasingly, "especially to be handicapped like that."

Every muscle in Miles' body tensed as though the man had electrocuted him. He shouldn't be angry; he was obviously trying to be complimentary. Some people just sucked at not being an asshole.

"How'd it happen?"

The stench of burning rubber, the screams of his mother and any unfortunate enough to be in the proximity. Waking up from a nightmare that claimed so much more than his left arm. Miles' voice trembled as his response tumbled clumsily past cinched lips. "I'd rather not say."

McLean would've been in his legal rights to force him to divulge what he obviously didn't want to, it would've just been a matter of paperwork afterwards. But he respected hesitance to discuss some things, if only rudimentarily. He wasn't an empathetic man in the best of times, but loss he understood rather well.

McLean sighed, "We're not here to hurt you; we have to be firm, we have to use force. But we're here to get you back on the right track. We can only do that if you trust us and show us that we can trust you."

His voice seemed sincere now, maybe it was, but Miles didn't believe him. The tension in the room could've been plucked and played like a harp. Again, he withheld his reply.

"Can I trust you?"

Silence. Brief acknowledgement, and then a self-satisfied huff from the Colonel.

"Dismissed."

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **2233 Hours MST**

 **Amphitheater, Total Reform Campground - Southern Quadrant, Ephraim Ridge**

" _Be back here, ready to discuss, at 10:30_. _Use this."_

As she remembered the note that had been wrapped around the key she'd been given, Savannah wished more than anything that the guards hadn't taken her watch. It had had some sentimental value, of course, it had been a birthday present from her best friend from sophomore year, but that mattered considerably less now. All she really wanted was to know the time, if only so she could blast Sakushi's ass for not being here to meet her.

What if someone noticed she was gone? In the chill of the night, she periodically readjusted her collar to avoid irritating the burns it had given her. Her muscles still twitched painfully from the shock she'd received earlier, and where the prongs that delivered the volt pressed into her neck had almost melted some of her skin. She couldn't bear the thought of being zapped again tonight.

"You gonna just keep pacing like that," a voice from nowhere asked her, "or are you going to say something?"

She seized. In the darkness, she gripes wildly for Sakushi's form, but found nothing, heard no footsteps. His disembodied voice chuckled in her ear as his calloused hand gripped her shoulder. "Stop flailing," he told her, and she wrenched herself from his grip.

Savannah, her pulse racing, spat at him, "What the Hell was that about."

The Conman sighed. "I've got a lot of work to do, it looks like," he muttered. "I'm not just taking you with me, you know. You're going to have to pull your own weight."

The Rabble-Rouser allotted herself a deep, calming breath, not really registering. "Pull my weight?"

"We're getting out of here."

Savannah's first instinct was to brace herself for another shock, or an alarm, or something. Surely, with their collars, someone had heard him say that. She looked to him wildly, her eyes still adjusting to the darkness, and she made out a faint outline of his face, looking somewhat lopsided with most of his ear missing. He laughed again softly.

"Smart thinking," he admitted. "But the collars don't work that way. They can't hear us speak through them, the radio is only one-way. There are frackers, but they don't activate unless we're in a challenge, surprisingly. Guess they can't afford to waste the battery or something."

He didn't seem at all phased by his own analysis, and in spite of herself, Savannah couldn't help but be at least a bit impressed. "How did you know that," she asked skeptically. "And where did you get that key?"

"You think this is my first shock collar?" Sakushi asked in response, laughing. "I told you, better men than these clowns have tried to keep me in places way scarier than this. As for the key, Lauro knocked it off one of the guards' belt when they were picking him up. I noticed it first."

Savannah nodded slowly, allowing herself the smallest flicker of foolish hope. This boy clearly understood the stakes. Maybe he could be trusted to get them out of here. Maybe.

The inmate who'd followed Faye and Lana had followed Savannah as well. They grinned at the power they had now, and how it fit in their hand. They too had noticed something fall from one of the guards that had tried to stand the inmates up. Their treasure had been a knife.

In their palm, the key the girl had been given gleamed in the starlight next to it.

They had everything they needed now.

* * *

 **August 5th, 2015**

 **2341 Hours MST**

 **Boy's Barracks, Total Reform Campground - Southern Quadrant, Ephraim Ridge**

It seemed almost insulting to reapply the mud to his face. Bastion had cleaned it off him when he'd hesitated in doing so. His hands had been exceedingly gentle, almost affectionate, in a manner that extended far beyond the agreement they'd made.

Sitting there now, by the barracks, as he redirtied his face, Bastion didn't seem at all phased by this betrayal. Every so often, he offered a small smile when he felt the islander's eyes fall on him. His hands drifted to the hem of his pajamas. They were old, ragged, and the most faded-looking red; made for someone darker but clashing horribly with his olive complexion.

 _The car had been cold, neither of them slept in a shirt the night before. When a guard had ripped Bastion from his bed, he'd been naked. Cygnus' good fortune ended there; at least, in being dragged to the slaughter by his own father, he'd had the opportunity to dress with dignity, even if only slightly. He'd given Bastion the pajama pants he'd been wearing. That was how the pact was made._

"You two have fun?"

Cygnus looked away, slightly put off. He wasn't entirely sure how to feel about Dante. Bastion bit his lip, he'd been the sub this time, and he hoped he hadn't been too vocal. For someone so quiet, Cygnus was good at what he did. The artist's tone was cool and lacking any malice, actually it was lighter than he would've believed possible. He seemed to be genuinely amused by all that had happened. "Never mind, I'm getting my ass to bed."

With that, the artist inclined his head and strode into the barracks, clicking the door shut behind him. Bastion eyed him warily before casting his eyes over to his companion. "Going to bed too?" he asked with a levitating smile.

This time, whether it be from appreciation or infatuation, Cygnus smiled back softly. "Nah," he responded finally. "Just getting ready for tomorrow."

Bastion cocked his head, slight agitation replacing the voracity in his gaze. "It's a nice contour," he admitted, motioning at the mud streaks. "But, at the risk of sounding creepy, you have a really handsome face. It's a shame to see you mar it like that. And anyway, we just got you cleaned up."

Cygnus lowered his arching brows in a look of reproach. "It makes me feel better, I guess," he muttered quietly, and then amended, "It keeps my face cool, I mean. In the heat."

He immediately plastered a look of conviction on his face that, even in near-total darkness, looked laughably forced. A dried smear under his left eye cracked at the strain. Bastion said nothing; he didn't believe him, but he was merciful enough to not vocalize his skepticism. It wasn't necessary.

"It's almost lights out. Are you going in now?"

A jackrabbit bounded across the clay in the distance. Cygnus rinsed off his fingers and dabbed gently at his face. "In a minute," he said, and Bastion pretended to not here the soft sniff he let out. Instead, he ignored the tightness of his own throat. In a moment, he'd have his face buried in his pillow, trying to keep the sobs that had been gnawing at his heels all day quiet.

"Don't cry," he said simply, and then strode past him. The islander's voice sounded weakly just before he opened the door.

"Bastion."

A curious chill, and then an even stranger warmth, spread through his veins at the sound of his name issuing from the smaller boy's mouth.

"You have a handsome face, too."

The doll's hand lingered on the doorknob for a moment, its owner at a curious loss for words. He settled on a vague noise of acknowledgement, and then retreated quickly, hoping the blush creeping into his cheeks wasn't as visible as he thought it was.

In the dull haze of a misplaced streetlight, Cygnus plastered smile fell with a tremulous inhale. His eyes drifted to the small puddle that had formed under the spigot. It was more peaceful here at night than he'd assumed, where he had expected feral animals and sandstorms, there was the mellifluous balm of dry coolness and a cloud of white moths fluttering like ashes in the beam of the wall light. It was strange to him that it was still summer elsewhere.

His eyes locked with his reflection, who gazed back at him with a baleful hatred. "I don't deserve this," he told himself with a remarkable zeal. "I don't."

And what wouldn't he have given for that to have been true?

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **0155 Hours MST**

 **Outside the Garages, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

The crude barks of laughter that issued from the shed reminded them of an animal's call, perhaps a hyena or something of the like. Something too human to be beast, but too beastly to be human.

 _That's what I am now_ , they thought to themselves.

When they put on the mask, they forsook their identity as an inmate and as a person. The fearsome, canid likeness, decorated with with plumes of feathers and braided hair, became their face. It became who they were.

They crouched low beneath a stack of empty crates, a panther in the night stalking the most hapless of prey, as the guards continued their revelry. It had started innocently enough; Truman had assigned two guards to run maintenance on the ATVs, it grew into a small gathering, and one unfortunate was hapless enough to say he knew where McLean hid his whiskey.

All they had to do was wait.

The passing of the moon seemed to throw a snag in their plans, and they allowed themselves a stifled growl of annoyance. Two staffers became four, and then eight, and then - finally - all twelve. They almost considered postponing their hunt, or at least rethinking their strategy. It wouldn't be safe to cull until they were alone. Nothing was more dangerous than a spooked animal if its pack could hear its bleating.

 _You wonder the identity of this shadowed figure, I presume? Of course, I could tell you, but what would be the purpose of that? Now that you've met my eighteen inmates, you've met this killer. Perhaps you believe yourself clever enough to decipher their true name, maybe even their motive._

 _I tell you with utter certainty: you are wrong._

Footsteps, and a consistency that promised one on his own, and their heart gave a wild leap of fervor. The guard that had driven the van that stole them, guffawing something about needing to take a piss. Men were so vile.

They kept their entire body against the ground as they followed him to the edge of a small thicket, weaving behind stones and within skeletal remains of houses as they moved. When the driver stopped suddenly, their blood turned instantly to ice.

"Who's back there," the man slurred drunkenly. He wasn't terribly old, probably in his late thirties, with a receding hairline and a bulbous musculature that hinted heavily at overcompensation. But brawn and shortcomings had no meaning, no significance. All they had eyes for was the prominent vein pulsating so invitingly on his sinewy throat. He was alone and uncertain, the most perfect of prey.

"'M not gonna ask again, who's b-"

And then they were upon him.

A kind of primal assurance followed them in their work, possibly some evolutionary instinct that kept a predator composed enough to avoid damaging their prey beyond edibility. Or perhaps it was the inborn knowledge that, undeniably, they were doing what was right.

What ever the reason, they're hand was steady and their movements were sharp. It took all of two seconds for the blade in their hand to carve a perfect pentacle into his neck, veins and muscle sliced cleanly without a single fray. The driver gagged and sputtered a bloody froth, stumbled backward, and hit the ground like a toppled domino.

Even as all his blood left him, his eyes never closed. It seemed almost arrogant to not sign their work, like an artist too overly confident in their abilities refusing to put their name to a masterpiece. They took up their knife again. This time, it moved slowly; a plastic number carving a jack-o-lantern.

When they had finished, they took up the small key that they'd found by the barracks - likely intended for an emergency of some kind - and took their leave. The wind fluttered over the residual imprints that their boots had left in the clay.

Within moments, it was as though they'd never been there at all.

 _This assailant was an inmate, that much I will tell you, and they would strike three more times before they were apprehended. Two guards and one other inmate will be slain at their hand. Then, the real bloodshed will begin._

 _For now, however, let us call them what they chose as their pseudonym for their artwork._

 _Set._

* * *

 **October 3rd, 2015**

 **1343 Hours MST**

 **77 Berkeley Rd. - Midland, Texas**

 _I don't know why I followed the Reverend home that day. Certainly, I didn't believe I would be welcome in the home of a minister, or any of any men or women of the cloth for that matter. But then again, their title probably wouldn't have meant much in retrospect. I'm sure, when all the ribbons and epithets are stripped away, they hate me no more than anyone else._

 _What did I expect to gain from such a visit, I wonder? Relief? Closure? You must forgive the laugh in my tone; I'm fully aware how callow it sounds, I assure you. It's only that, now, I understand how stupid I was. Whatever warmth, whatever comfort, his home might've offered no longer existed._

 _I remember, when the stars had fallen and the Earth had been judged, I approached Julia Brown. She looked directly into my eyes, her's far dryer than mine, and reached up unfeelingly to wipe a bit of blood from beneath her hairline. I couldn't be sure if it was her's or not. I said nothing. Neither did she._

 _I stepped past his threshold, letting my eyes wander to the pictures on the walls. A little dark-skinned, bright-smiling cherub beamed at me from the frames. The same smile in multicolored bonnets, in princess dresses, and school photos underneath a lacy, yellow bow. The Reverend collapsed against a doorframe, sobbing, and I walked uninvited up his stairwell, into her bedroom._

 _And then I saw her again._

 _If there were ever a little girl who had tea parties with her dolls or cried during a thunderstorm, she was gone now. She was gone._

 _"I'm tired," she whispered, when she sensed my presence. I rested my hand on her shoulder, and she leaned in to my touch._

 _"I'm so fucking tired."_

* * *

 **There's been a considerable hardship these past few months concerning my family, culminating in a less-than-ideal situation for all involved, which has hampered my progress considerably. That aside, I plan on having the next update completed and posted by Christmas. This excessive length of time will not be the average wait-time in the future; my goal is to have the story completed within the next year.**

 **A side note that I feel is important: if you are interested in the political aspects of this story, I encourage you all to get involved in the Standing Rock pipeline dispute going on currently. With the absolute circus that we just handed over the country to (if you are a American and are a Trump supporter, please don't let me find that out), its important for us all to stand with marginalized groups in the coming years, including the indigenous peoples. #NoDAPL**

 **Whether or not you choose to be involved, I wish you all of you who celebrated it a very Happy Thanksgiving I retrospect, and I hope to see you soon.**

 **À bientôt, mes amies.**

 **Obsidios**


	6. Day II: Memento Mori

_"Once again, thank you for having me. It is such an honor to be speaking here today._

 _Like Dr. Lambert said, my name is Savannah Warren and I am the author of_ Fallen Gods: A Firsthand Account of Total Reform _."_

 **December 5th, 2020**

 **1832 Hours MST**

 **Dolman Auditorium, Westwood University of the Arts - Santa Monica, California**

 _"To answer your question honestly, no. No, I certainly didn't expect my book to get the response it did. I never claimed to be an author, I just wanted those who were making the assumptions that were so... so caustic and so accusatory, I wanted them to be aware of what really happened in that desert."_

 _From my place unseen below her podium, I noticed another hand shoot up from the darkened sea of faces around me. The girl before me still looked noticeably abashed at her situation, even though this had been the norm for her for a while. Even with it written down in front of her, she didn't seem to grasp the reality of her situation._

 _("...but then again I suppose some wounds aren't meant to close. Some run deep as though carved there by existence itself, and so you try to defy nature and seal them up yourself." [Warren, 144])_

 _Savannah acknowledged, "Yes, you?"_

 _An undergrad rose from her seat. "What can you tell us about the upcoming movie?"_

 _A considerable applause and a few hoots of enthusiasm rippled through the crowd, and Savannah gave a small laugh. "As you know, I'm contractually bound, so I'm not at liberty to divulge too much, but I can tell you that we won't be using the actual grounds for shooting, for obvious reasons, and that filming is set to begin in late October. I can also confirm that, last night, we signed the incomparable Mr. Alejandro Burromuerto to play the role of Cygnus."_

 _More clapping, this slew far more fervent, then another hand up, which she was glad for; talking about Cygnus was still a rather painful matter. How was it that these children didn't understand? How was it that they could only care about the actors in the adaptation?_

 _Savannah pointed again. "You, in the front there?"_

 _This time, I stood, and the girl noticeably seized._

 _"I don't think it an understatement that you've had your fair share of critics since publishing your work," I stated. "Many people have expressed doubt at your authenticity given your understandable state of mind during the time of the events. For example, there's multiple mentions of astronomical event so that were not observed by any members of nearby communities, as well as information that you would've had no knowledge of as they've been described. What would you say to these detractors?"_

 _At this, Savannah seemed to pause. A tremor went through her body that certainly I could not have been the only one to notice. "Well, people have been calling me a madwoman since the first book tour. I've had claims of plagiarism, of forgery, even of leading witnesses so that they'll follow some 'liberal agenda' I'm apparently promoting. But for all the witch-hunts, you'll notice that everything I've written checks out. I have yet to be disputed legitimately."_

 _I smiled and persisted, "Yes, that brings me to my next question. If you don't mind my asking, why did you leave out your testimony of the Atrocity?"_

 _Savannah's hand twitched and I raised my brows, actually somewhat intrigued, curious to how she'd answer. I saw words tumble around inside her head for a few moments as she took a sip of her water to stall. Eventually, she cleared her throat and looked directly into the my eyes._

 _"Many things happened at Ephraim that I cannot explain," she said slowly, her smile not hiding the steel in her voice. "But nothing haunts me quite like the Atrocity does."_

 _There were sighs, whispers. One boy in the front row shifted uncomfortably._ _Expectant silence held the room and for one fleeting, horrible second, Savannah Warren feared she would lose her composure. Silence. The same silence that followed the Commandant before-_

 _("It was my fault; if I'd never picked up that goddamn pendant…" [Warren, 209])_

" _It was guilt, mostly," she said too quickly, her voice breaking ever so slightly and her hand trembling as it guided a lock of hair that'd fallen out of her bun behind her ear. "You always think, after tragedy, there was something I could've done. Maybe you could've stopped it, if things had been different."_

 _She tapered off and cleared her throat, and I paid no mind to the dirty looks I received. Instead, I gently prompted her, "But, there wasn't?"_

" _No." I pressed my lips together and Savanah drew a shuddering breath before speaking again. "There was something I could've done. Or something I should not have done."_

 _She pressed a small whimper into her hand, and then she cleared her throat._

" _It started before she got there," Savanna mumbled, referring obviously to the masked murderer we all knew. "It wasn't her fault. I know how that sounds, but it wasn't."_

 _She sniffed and tried to pass it off as ironic laughter, shaking her head. "It started with a cherry, and a fuckton of blood."_

* * *

 **Total Reform:**

 **The Ephraim Atrocity**

 **Day II: Memento Mori**

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **0530 Hours MST**

 **Girl's Barracks, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

An increasingly **-** familiar,incredibly shrill intonement tore every female in the room from her cot. Some rose from disjointed resting, others raised their heads in a grogginess that implied an actual slumber. One in particular had had their eyes open already, and had the sense to cover his ears before the alarms sounded. By the time many of his bunkmates were on the ground, scrambling for the off-buttons on their own collars, Faye Yuha had already composed himself. He'd been awake for quite some time.

"Morning, cutie," he said haughtily, dismounting and nudging Lana's ass with his foot. The girl had tumbled from her own cot, struggling in the musty-smelling sheets that coiled around her like a cobweb on a fly. She straightened herself out after a moment, grinning at how some of the girls had yet to discover how to deactivate their respective alarms. One of them, Cissi, had taken to attempting to tear her's off until it jolted her hands away.

The chaos was halted immediately when the door to the barracks burst open and a pack of guards - many of them male - filed into the room. Cissi, who'd peeled off her shirt in the night, made a mad grab to cover her bare breasts. One officer knocked Faye with his shoulder.

"Figured you could do with being around your own kind, little lady," he whispered in his ear. "Help you with your little... _affliction_."

Faye clenched his fists. "I'm a boy," he volleyed back.

 _I'll never understand your obsession with dichotomy, specifically the one you call 'gender'. So many of you think it's to do with mannerisms and genitalia, I'd honestly find it humorous if it didn't make my life so much harder. At the risk of digressing, allow me to clarify that Faye Yuha was indeed a boy, and that was not an affliction. He was merely born a Michelle._

The guard scoffed and joined his comrades in flipping mattresses, bed frames, and sending them all scattering in confusion. Only when the barracks had been demolished to their liking did they cease and file alongside the wall opposite to the door. One of them, a cherub-cheeked woman with a shock of red hair, addressed them.

"Congrats, ladies," she said, in a graveled voice that hinted at a long career of smoking, "you passed your first contraband test."

The present inmates all looked around at their poor excuse for a dwelling. Blankets, mattresses, and pillows had been thrown haphazardly across the linoleum flooring. There wasn't much to be angry about; none of them had any personal possessions to be caught and ruined in the crossfire, but there was still the prominent and unpleasant inkling that they'd be expected to clean up the mess. Ari was the only one who vocalized her distress audibly, earning her a scornful glance from Marley. When the former dipped down and began raking small pills back into their bottle, Carmen knocked her over with her foot before rounding angrily on the woman.

"What would we even smuggle in here?" she demanded.

The red-headed guard didn't turn to acknowledge her. "One of the guards reported his knife stolen yesterday afternoon. Since it's not here I'm betting one of the boys stole it."

"Nope."

Everyone turned. Truman leaned in the doorway, wiping his hands on a rag. "None of the boys had it."

The redheaded guard growled under her breath. "What, did the jackass just drop it out there? Where the Hell is Fenton anyway?"

Another young man, looking decidedly disheveled, stepped forward from the platoon. He couldn't have been too much older than any of the inmates, with lank hair, pale skin, and purple-rimmed eyes that well-conveyed a hangover. "Might still be asleep. I didn't check his room."

Redhead sucked her teeth. "Lightweights," she groused, looking to Truman. "I'll get these princesses prepared for the day, if you wanna go get him."

Truman nodded. "Have 'em at the mess hall by six, Colonel wants to get an early start. Chains are wired up in the shed."

Ari, still recovering her pills, snapped her head up.

"Chains?"

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **0545 Hours**

 **Amphitheater, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Lauro was certain his stomach had been so empty that had collapsed in on itself during the night; clearly that was the only explanation. He must've been so hungry that he wasn't hungry anymore. He grimaced, picking at the scrambled eggs on his plate and watching the others do the same from their own places around the amphitheater.

Gently, he repositioned his collar, hoping the coolness of the morning would alleviate the burns it had given him yesterday. The wound had yet to scab over, and the itching in the meantime was nigh unbearable, like ants crawling along the seams of his torn skin.

"Your neck still fucked up, too?"

Lauro cracked a half-smile. "You can still speak," he remarked, with caustically-false awe. He softened his voice meagerly at the look he received in return. "Hey, I was scared they fried your larynx or something, like that poor bitch hanging around you yesterday."

Arlo gave his head a weak shake. "They gave it their best shot," he replied, adjusting his own collar. Lauro hissed sympathetically at how much deeper and redder his burn was than his own, how it was already turning dark and flaking at the edges.

"Damn," was all he could muster. Part of him considered advising him to seek out the medic, but thought better than to. Bulging muscles and tattoos gave the boy an advantage in here; they made him look tough, untouchable, and going to the medic would damage that. Shock was already starting to wear off, and prison mentality was starting to surface. Before long, intimidation would be a precious commodity. That was one of the only reasons Lauro hadn't brushed the boy off.

"Sausage?" he offered, extending the freezer-burned patties at the edge of his plate. He wasn't sure if his offer would be taken as it was intended; they were obviously not meat, and certainly not beneficial in any sense of the term; nothing worth bartering would be that shade of gray. Arlo regarded him skeptically, and Lauro shrugged. "Stomach's upset," he added blankly.

This seemed to appease the other boy and he speared one of the patties with his fork and, from the look on his face, Lauro figured he'd been right about them being disgusting. "Have you seen Marley out here yet," Arlo asked, his mouth still full. "Or any of the girls?"

Lauro was about to respond that he hadn't when one of the guards took the stage, one he recognized as having helped him up yesterday. "Breakfast," he announced, "is now over. Everyone is to report to the toolshed by the barracks now. As always, you will move quickly and silently. I doubt I need to remind you of the consequences."

The notion made Lauro's burn prickle even more, this time from anger. Arlo gently nudged him with his foot as he stood.

"Let's go."

* * *

 **August 6th, 2016**

 **0610 Hours MST**

 **Courtyard, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

The girls never got breakfast. They were allowed to shower quickly, if they chose to, under guard, and then ten minutes to prepare for their day. The boys got to eat, and they were withheld the luxury of a few moments in the bathroom. Both parties were promised the process would be inverted the next day, this beginning a sort of cycle, but that made no one feel any better.

 _Really, it only started their day on the extremely depressing fact that this was to be their lives for the indefinite future. Even on the second day, they already seemed cognizant that there was no end in sight to their perdition._

 _They might've considered me lucky that I could, but they would've been wrong. The grass is always greener, as they say. But then, that is wrong too._

It seemed there was no time of day in which the elements were favorable at Ephraim. When the two teams stood awaiting briefing, the windchill bit the flesh of their bare arms, though the mentality Carmen had commentated on was still pervasive enough that it kept them from seeking warmth through proximity. Ironically enough, they attempted to put even more distance between themselves despite their new respective alliances. None of them had much success, of course, due to their circumstances. Morning workout had been considerably difficult; thirty reps of push-ups, squat thrusts, crunches, and burpees, six times apiece, all done in perfect unity with each other. If the synchronization was broken, and it was more than once, they had to start over.

This, too, was made incredibly difficult by the shackles they'd been forced to wear.

In time, after much grumbling and sweating despite the cold, and only a few threats of shock, the task had been completed. Julia's team had finished first.

Bundled in a fleecy white cardigan and flanked on either side by policewomen, Madeline Clarke addressed them with zeal too suffocatingly cheerful to be convincing. "See, this is what headway looks like," she beamed at Julia, who looked back at her with mild revulsion that, if Clarke had picked up on, she kept it to herself. "You all have earned a special leg up for the challenge today."

Her words didn't have the effect that she wanted them to. All of the inmates looked less excited about any advantage than the prospect of tearing the woman apart. One of the policewomen - the darker-skinned of the two, with tight curls of brown hair and a perpetually nervous twitch to her hands - was off-put enough to finger her holster.

"This is Officers Sanders," Clarke quickly interjected, motioning to her. Then, to the woman on her left, "and this is Officer MacArthur. The both of them will be here to help you with your challenge today."

The women nodded, but the inmates regarded them no differently than they would've any other guard. Only a handful seemed to recognize them at all.

"Yeah," Officer Sanders began. "We got assigned to the States after the Race, and…," she regressed at the looks she received. "You guys don't get to know who won, though. The finale... airs in October."

MacArthur offered an awkward smile and amended, "Or February, for those from Canada."

 _None of them were from Canada, of course. And more than a few doubted they would live to see October._

The Colonel's arrival was different today. At least a few inmates straightened their spines without being told. Truman, at his side, smirked. _Progress_.

McLean began, "Your challenge today will be easy, for those of you who used yesterday's opportunity to learn this desert and how to adequately navigate it." Marley and Caroline looked at each other. That must've been what the old man meant by 'techniques' yesterday.

"Your challenge today will take place in three different places, each of which you ran through. As I'm sure you noticed, you're all going to be performing this task with the new teams you were chosen for yesterday. We decided to add a little twist, in keeping with the spirit of my boy's little games."

The Colonel lifted a binder in each hand and thrust both at Dante and Julia roughly. "The technical shit is in there," he said offhandedly, before continuing. "The meat of the challenge is to find the key that unlocks your chains, and there are four keys hidden out there that will. You search until one team finds and uses their key."

The inmates all looked down at the shackles clamped around their ankles. They looked like any old cast-iron ones used in chain-gang movies, save for the electronic-looking lock that held them together.

Dante chuckled, leafing disinterestedly through the binder. "So, say we don't find the keys… we just gonna stay chained up forever?"

McLean shook his head. "The challenge goes to sunset, after which the locks will no longer react to the keys. If you succeed in this challenge, your chains will be unlocked then. If you don't…"

He stopped in front of Arlo, then reached out and jerked his collar, exposing the hole in his flesh and tearing off a few meager attempts that the boy's body had made to cauterize it. Arlo couldn't stop the small, pained yelp that tore from his throat.

"The only way out is to break the chains, and the only way to do that is to overload them. One unfortunate side effect of this will be your legs looking like this," McLean drawled, motioning to the burn. Some of the guards, as well as both Sanders and MacArthur, turned their heads at the sight, stifling gags.

"You'll find all four keys at Lake Lazuli. There are two silver ones with flat heads out there which can be utilized by anyone, but they will only unlock eight of the nine sets. There's also two gold keys that can only be utilized by the inmate they represent. If used correctly, they'll unlock every cuff on there. The challenge goes to sunset, or until a team uses a gold key. Any questions?"

The inmates all looked at each other now. They had many questions, many of them centered around the notion that only five of them would be freed if they found a silver key, but fear of the answer kept their mouths shut. Caroline meekly raised her hand.

"What do you mean, 'represent'?"

McLean didn't look at her. "The head of each key will… well, it'll match."

This stopped everyone. Dante and Julia looked at each other.

"Get going."

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **0855 Hours MST**

 **Lake Lazuli, Northern Border of Ephraim Ridge - Ephraim Ridge**

Todd cursed himself. How could he already be going soft?

At McLean's word, the two teams broke into runs down the pathway and collided in a flurry of shoves and awkward stumbling. Members of both teams had stumbled over their chains multiple times before breaking into a quasi-synchronized bramble, which they had kept up with limited success for the past few hours, and yet he seemed to be the only one already out of breath.

 _The heat_ , he thought to himself. _It had to be._ But that didn't explain why his eyes were burning so badly.

Eventually, the lakebed crested over the horizon, wreathed by its palace of dead bushes and cracked salt-flats. In the center, like a chip in a hollow earth, was the now-familiar pit of Lake Lazuli, attended by its perpetual court of soaring buzzards.

At the heads of the line, moving quickly but also infuriatingly cooperatively, Sanders and MacArthur jogged ahead of them. The way they threw their heads back every now and again before averting their eyes, they looked like they were being chased. Even with his vision stunted, he could sense their apprehension. They thought that they were dealing with criminals. It made his blood boil.

"Wait."

MacArthur skirted to a stop as her metal detector chimed and the inmates all collided into one another behind her. Miles' arm almost became dislodged for the second time in two days.

"Sorry, guys," the officer said sheepishly. "The keys are somewhere around here."

 _None of the inmates were listening to her, however. Their eyes had been captured by something else._

MacArthur followed their gaze, and then looked at Sanders. "Are… those horses?"

The taller woman squinted against the sun. In a clearing a ways away the lake, standing in a cluster and staring back at them, was a herd of wild mustangs. At least thirty broad, stoic faces, all of them unblinking, none of them moving.

It shouldn't have been unsettling. Perhaps it wouldn't have been, had it not been that all of them were unmistakably staring at them. A few of them, the bigger amid the herd, scraped their hooves on the ground threateningly.

Caroline swallowed anxiously. "They look… kind of pissed off, don't they?"

Sanders raised the pistol on her belt in response and fired it into the air, expecting the horses to scatter, but none of them did. If anything, it seemed to agitate them further - one of them reared back and neighed. Ana resisted the urge to hide behind Ari.

"I didn't know there were any mustangs in Arizona," Sakushi mumbled. "This ugly country never ceases to surprise me."

Carmen gave him a curt chuckle. "The Kovanah used to domesticate mustangs," she informed him. "These must be the ones who were left. There's just nothing we haven't displaced here."

Sanders slid her pistol back into its holster. "They're just horses," she said indifferently. "They're probably just grazing. You all get looking, yeah?"

The inmates obeyed, awkwardly shuffling over their shackles and keeping their eyes on the herd. Caroline lingered a moment, keeping her eyes locked on a bone-colored mare in the center of the congregation. She seemed familiar somehow.

"Hey?"

She turned at the address, keeping half her attention on the mare. Her team captain stood behind her. "You alright?"

Caroline nodded absently. "Yeah… yeah, I'm fine."

"Good," Julia replied, before turning her attention to MacArthur. "Hold this please?"

Caroline walked alongside Julia when the rulebook exchanged hands, leaving the officers alone. MacArthur grimaced, she couldn't shake the unease at the thirty pairs of eyes still boring into her. How could horses be so goddamn creepy?

"So," she looked to her partner. "What do you think?"

Sanders exhaled. She knew MacArthur wasn't referring to the challenge, nor the inmates or the mustangs. She was referring to the job they were actually there to do.

"I think that Chief was right," she whispered, readjusting her earring discreetly. "There's definitely something weird going on here."

 _Yes, neither Sanders nor MacArthur were there for the reasons they were believed to be. I understand that all this may come across as strange, perhaps hard to follow, but Ephraim Ridge was a place of agendas, you see, but I wouldn't worry if you're having trouble keeping up. Three stories will conclude in the next two days, and that will free up some airspace._

As two officers busied themselves with observing the inmates, Sakushi approached Savannah, still managing to saunter despite the chains on his ankles. Savannah sent him a dirty smirk.

"I've been crunching numbers," Sakushi muttered, pretending to inspect a nearby thicket of weeds. "I've come to the conclusion that we've got two basic options for escaping. My personal preference, we create a diversion and escape during the chaos."

Savannah's grin deepened as she pretended to stretch. "I'm listening."

Sakushi nodded, extending his fist to her. "You think you could slip something into someone's food for me?"

The girl straightened, another nearby inmate lifted their ear with a smile at the idea he had given them. "What?"

In response, the Con-Artist opened his hand. Inside, wrapped in toilet paper, was a small white tablet. Savannah recognized it immediately as what they drugged Arlo with yesterday. She looked from the tablet to the boy, putting two and two together. She swallowed.

"These things are pure ammonia," Sakushi smirked. "Wasn't easy getting it, but-"

The Thrill Seeker's hand snaked out and swatted the pill out of the boy's hand, splitting open a scabbing wound on one finger. Sakushi withdrew his hand with a hiss.

"What the fu-?"

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Savannah demanded, looking over her shoulder for any eavesdroppers. "We aren't poisoning anyone to save our own necks."

Sakushi squinted incredulously, as though the girl had just spouted gibberish. "What?"

"You heard me," Savannah said. "No killing."

Sakushi straightened. "These guards are just mindless thugs that McLean picked up, they aren't people. If we want to get out of here-"

"I said 'no'!" Savannah hissed, and Sakushi actually looked confused, almost hurt, at her refusal. "You wanted to come with me," he reminded her harshly. "You said you could handle it."

The blonde girl opened her mouth again, and then closed it. This wasn't something she was prepared for; even the worst of the delinquents she had associated with in her past had never expressed any intentions like this. Hell, she herself had only been committed for vandalism. Poisoning someone with ammonia… she didn't peg Sakushi for a murderer.

She shook her head. "What was your other proposal," she asked him, obviously changing the subject, and he looked at her disappointedly before explaining, "We stage a traditional escape, or is that too dangerous too?"

Nearby, a vulture descended and began pecking at a dead prairie dog. "A 'traditional escape'?" Savannah repeated septically, and Sakushi nodded irritably. "What's that?"

"No," he responded, folding his arms. "We wait until nightfall and then make a run for the weak spot in the fence. It's a lot more risk than necessary, in my opinion, and then theres the matter of the inevitable search that'll happen-"

"But no one gets hurt, right?'

Sakushi shrugged. "If we do it right."

Savannah exhaled, rolling her shoulders, considering. She was currently fraternizing with enemy, she was absolutely certain that she didn't want Dante to learn that. What if this was all some big ploy? What if this criminal intended to kill her once they got out of earshot? Or what if he was planning to double cross her, or at least considered it a plausible necessity if things got bad? There were so many things that could go wrong, all for a slim chance of escape that might not even come to fruition.

"Fine," she said finally, ignoring the icy stab of apprehension that pierced her stomach. "Let's get planning."

Sakushi nodded. "After the challenge," he mumbled, and then he started away.

" _Shit_!"

Savannah whirled around. Much of her team was a short ways away, congregating around Carmen, who was slowly backing away from a large rock, her face as white as a sheet. Dante had already spouted a slew of profanities in the time it had taken them all to react.

"There's one in there," he spat. "There's a gold key in there!"

Carmen shot back, "Well, I'm not fucking touching it!"

Savannah followed the girl's finger to a worn-in crevice at the stone's base. Something long and metal dangled within, suspended on a bit of wire, and surrounding it was a mount of what looked like hissing tentacles. Carmen set her jaw and folded her arms, actually at a loss for words. Someone - whomever had orchestrated this challenge - had actually put their key in a snake's nest.

"Maybe it's not ours, does that symbol mean anything to anyone?" Bastion asked them, approaching the nest and leaping back as a knobby, copper head reared up and flicked its black tongue at them. Finally, reluctantly, Faye raised his hand.

The boy was blanched, averting his eyes, for good reason. The symbol in question was an unmistakable caricature of the trans insignia, mounted on what looked to be a skull with flowing, feminine hair.

Cygnus gave a small chuckle and mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that, mudbaby?"

A few eyes turned to Lauro, who looked considerably pissed. Faye was obviously distressed, for equally obvious reasons, and he personally couldn't see what the Islander found funny.

 _I'd just like to go on record to say that I do not condone the use of that insult. 'Mudbaby', you see, is an incredibly derogatory term for someone who is born from a non-Hispanic white and a person of color, often one of African ancestry. In fact, Cygnus was of Samoan descent, a facet in which he took immense pride. Remember that, you'll want to know it later._

 _On the matter at hand, though this does not excuse anything, Lauro's comment was not racially motivated. Indeed, he was referring to Cygnus' face, which had been smeared once more with red mud. The skeletal contour he wore yesterday had been replaced with ugly, botching smears around his eyes, lips, and nostrils, making him look as though he'd bled to death through his face. It might've been an impressive make-up job, it was to an extent, had it not been so repulsive to look at. If you hadn't picked up on this, Cygnus painted his face hideously every day. This is also something you'll want to remember, there's an interesting story behind it._

 _Th_ e Islander narrowed his eyes as Lauro; this was the first time his face showed any emotion beyond an unnatural serenity, and everyone, including Bastion, decided then and there that they didn't like it. It was like watching the sky before a hurricane. Lauro shrunk slightly, and Dante grinned again unsettlingly. After a moment though, the storm in the boy's face seemed to pass.

" _Memento mori_ ," he repeated softly.

"It's Latin. _Remember, you will die."_

A loud thud, followed by a panicked explicative, tore everyone's attention westward, silencing any potential reply.

MacArthur had bounded forward and kneeled by something pale and motionless. She swore again as she flipped Todd from his side to his back, his head lolling unpleasantly the entire time.

"What happened?" MacArthur demanded from no one in particular. No one had anything prepared to tell her; they'd been equally shocked when Todd had, without any warning, collapsed in the sand. A slow drop of blood oozed from his nose like a slug emerging from under a stone, and MacArthur desperately racked her rudimentary medical knowledge for a logical explanation.

"Damn it," she shrieked again, no longer stifling the panic in her voice. "What the fuck happened?"

 _In the commotion, no one but I noticed Todd's lips part and, seemingly of their own accord, shape themselves to a single word I hadn't heard in a very long time. Fifteen minutes later, they carried him off on a stretcher._

Todd's absence was felt far more than they'd anticipated it would; not only for his strength, which would've been a much-needed leg up for his team, but also for the nervous hole it left in everyone's psyche. The time for worrying, however, was long passed, especially for Dante's team. The matter at hand for them had to be the key and nothing else.

"We could try and flush the snakes out," Ari suggested.

"Yeah, and how the hell do we do that?" Dante spat, eyeing her hard. "If you haven't noticed, we're in the fucking desert."

The Disavower bit the inside of her cheek at how the others regarded her. She was starting to develop the overwhelming suspicion that her team didn't like her, which was more distressing than she might've thought previously. It wasn't as though she cared personally, but if they didn't have at least some sort of unity, they could kiss their chances at winning - and not roasting alive - goodbye. She sighed and tried again.

"How about fire?" she suggested. "Maybe we can smoke them out."

Some of the others softened their expression. Cygnus and Bastion looked at each other. "We'd need materials," Bastion stated, mainly to Carmen. To his immense relief, the girl already looked to be forming an idea. Her mouth twisted in the way it always did before she said something intelligent.

"We'd need carbon steel, obviously..." she said after a moment of concentrating. "Plus, we need flint, and something to burn..."

Dante pulled the rulebook McLean had given him from his back pocket. "One down," he said, tossing it at Carmen's feet.

Carmen half-acknowledged him before continuing to ponder. "We could probably find flint and steel in one of the old housing structures," she said, and then her expression fell in frustration. The development was on the road leading from the gate to the camp, there was no way anyone would get there on foot in time. Not unless they stalled Julia's team or...

Julia's team.

"The metal detector."

Ana raised her head. "The what?"

Carmen turned back to her group, eyes glinting. "If we can get a hold of the metal detector, we can probably use it to make a torch. Does anyone here know how to take things apart?"

Cygnus raised his hand. "My dad and I used to work on cars together," he offered. "I could probably do it?"

Dante looked to Bastion, quirking an eyebrow. "How good is the dirty guy with his hands?"

Both boys sent him a look, which he laughed off. "Alright," he said finally. "Stealing, I can get behind. How do we make it work?"

Lauro cut his eyes at Sanders and MacArthur. "We'd need someone to distract them, and someone to distract Julia and the others." Everyone's eyes drifted immediately to Ana and Ari, seated next to each other. Ana sighed with resignation. "I'll take the guards, and you take the other team?"

Ari rolled her eyes. " _Ça va_."

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015 (Presumed)**

 **0000 Hours MST**

 **Location Unspecified**

A bloated, scum-colored moth beat Todd awake with its wings, and he moved groggily to bat it away. He blinked blearily as it fluttered into the sun overhead and, eventually, out of sight. Where the hell was he? And why had he awoken standing?

It looked as though he'd stepped into in a cheaply-done mural, one that might be seen in a children's day-care classroom. Overhead, the sky was a uniform off-blue and the meadow around him sparse; only a few leafless trees dotted the pale-green earth around him. He rested his hand on the ground and felt no grass, only a spongy surface that recalled to mind fake moss. Other insects like the one that awoke him flecked the scene like-

He could see.

Todd blinked a few times, snapped his fingers in front of his face, and rubbed his eyes raw until he only saw spots; each time his vision returned as though nothing had happened. No blur or anything.

"Nice, n'it?"

He whirled around. Standing a few feet away over a massive cauldron boiling over a static-looking fire was a man - or at least, so it appeared to be - in the most outlandish garb Todd had ever perceived. The man - the creature - spoke again, it's voice laced with a guttural chuckle that seemed in equal parts derogatory and obsequious.

"Ain't think I'd be seein' you for quite some time, boy."

Todd swallowed. "Wha- Who are you?"

It laughed again. "Nah, now, you was right askin' _what_ ," the creature replied, ending its laugh with a toothy smile. It looked to be human, though Todd would've used just about any other word to describe it. It was tall and pigeon-chested with ashen skin and white hair matted into a moldy plait that rested on one shoulder and drooped down to its hips like a dead snake. It wore a tailored suit the exact same shade of green as the moths around it, a matching fedora garnished with a pink feather, and a necktie affixed in place with what looked to be a diminutive skull. It carried a walking stick topped with a carved ornamentation in the shape of a rabbit.

"Okay," Todd said finally. "What are you? And where the Hell am I?"

The creature thumped its yellow, plectrum-like nail against its head. "Das right, Hell. But, ya second questions tricky, bebette," it said. "Some ca'me a god. Others say'm a devil. But I ain't one fo' labelin'. Me, I say'm the Baron. The Baron Doubye."

Doubye. The Blind Bat's memory flickered back to the mural, to Cissi's chanting, and the small effigy turning to cinders against the blue of the flame. It had looked like him, just like him, right down to the moldy hair.

Todd shook his head and said with little conviction, "That Cajun girl was right, they are lacing are food with shit-"

"Oh, you ain't never lied!" The Baron cut him off with a cackle. "'Em sonsa' bitches is turnin' y'alls brains to mush. But dat ain't why I'm here."

"And why's that?"

The Baron guffawed again, the light of his fire catching the golden lacquer on its front teeth. "Boy, you 'bout slow as shit. You done called me here, and now I mean to help you in'is fight."

Todd folded his arms. Obviously this was a dream of some sort, or some sick trick on McLean's part. He'd seen Total Drama, he knew what kind of games they were capable of. _Obviously the collars_ , he thought to himself with a dry swallow. Surely, they had some sort of surveillance system to them. That's how McLean knew about the so-called ceremony, and that's what he's using to fuck with him.

Might as well play along.

"I've seen the movies, Doubye," he announced, with a roll of his newly-restored eyes. "You give me my sight back at the price of my soul, and then I'm spending eternity boiling in that pot behind you, right? No deal."

The Baron raised its eyebrows and lowered them again, smirking. "You already heard I ain't from here, coullion. Ya done said a prayer, ya already offer to me wha's mine. I'm here to hold up my end of the bargain."

With a curiously jaunty flourish, one that Todd would never have attributed to someone as old and weathered-looking, it stooped down and began stirring whatever was in the cauldron with its walking stick. The red jewels in the rabbit's eyes glistened in the lifeless flicker of the fire. "Ooh, I love me da' _smell_ ," said the Baron, taking an appreciative whiff of the rising steam and clapping its hands.

Todd inhaled as well. All he could smell was burning wood. When he peered down into the pot, he couldn't see anything but flames scraping at the metal sides. "What're you even cooking?"

"Ain't cooking nothing," the Baron replied, withdrawing its cane from the blaze. The end piece didn't seem to change at all within the flames that encased it. This must've pleased the thing, because Todd noticed it didn't drop its smile. "I woulda thought you, of all people, would appreciate da smell of fire tho'."

Todd felt his breath hitch. "How the _fuck_ do you know about-"

Every thought in his head short-circuited as the Baron, with preternatural speed and strength, struck him across the eyes with his cane and a thousand white-hot knives plunged themselves into his flesh, bringing him down to his knees with an agonized howl. He clapped his hands to his face, scorching the palms of his hands and beating fruitlessly at his eyes as bubbles of hot blood burst forth from charring tissue. He could do nothing to stop the fire as it wormed its way into his eyes.

"Won't give you sight," the Baron said grimly, somehow entirely audible over the boy's wailing. "You wasn't meant to see like most, and I can't do jack shit about it. But I can give you som' else. Som' better."

Todd continued to scream. Even in the blazing darkness around him, he could feel his consciousness slipping away, his throat beginning to feel sticky with blood and yet he couldn't stop screaming.

The Baron spoke one last time, still as clear as a bell. "You mus' give it back when you done, now."

 _I'll step in once more here, if you please. The Baron and I know each other quite well and I can verify that he is not the Devil, and he was not lying. He was indeed summoned by Todd, however inadvertently, and through contractual obligation did do what he did to help him._

 _If nothing else, you will learn, the Baron has a unique way of serving his clients._

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **1643 Hours MST**

 **Lake Lazuli, Northern Border of Ephraim Ridge - Ephraim Ridge**

Farther along the salt-flat, still somewhat shaken, Julia's team was equally disgruntled. Arlo straightened his back with a grimace at the strain it'd put on his spine, and then he sighed at Marley, who'd turned to look at him. Neither of them had had any luck rooting through the sparse plants for the key.

Arlo looked off in the direction they'd taken Todd. "You think it was heat stroke?" he asked her, not expecting and answer. Marley offered him a small shrug before gesturing at his collar. Arlo returned her shrug.

"It's doing better, thanks," he said, referring to his burn. Whether or not the girl had bought his lie, she didn't indicate. She simply nodded and returned to searching, sauntering towards a ragged-looking shrub too desiccated to hide anything. It was something to do, anyway.

"I found something."

Everyone turned. Lana had sprawled herself out on the ground , her face pressed into a crevice underneath a stone. As everyone approached, they could vaguely pick up what sounded like clicking. "Something down there," Lana informed them, somehow unfazed. "It's a key, and it looks gold."

Julia began leafing through the manual she'd received; one of the sections was a rudimentary field manual. "What else is in there."

Lana shrugged, not moving. "Some kind of bug," she replied. "They're green, and they're moving really fast."

Julia made a noise of disapproval, which only Faye reacted to. "What is it?"

"According to this, those are called 'sand devils'. There's two species native to here, and only one is venomous."

Lana instantly pulled her head from the pit as though she'd been burned. "Venomous?"

The girl furiously began running her hands through her hair, eliciting a small laugh from Miles. "So," he asked, "how can you tell the difference?"

"The venomous ones click when they feel threatened," Julia answered him, ruefully.

The inmates all listened again. There was undoubtedly a noise coming from the nest. It sounded more like a rattle than clicking, but none of them doubted that it was there. Sakushi swore again.

"Do we go in after it?"

Miles stood. "I can," he offered, flexing his prosthetic fingers, but Julia shook her head almost instantly.

"I wouldn't," she mumbled, still scanning the pages. "Those things can eat through plastic."

Miles pressed his mouth into a line, Sakushi cursed under his breath in a language none of them knew. "So what do we do now?" he demanded. "There's a gold key down there and-"

"Fuck!"

Once more, everyone turned. Cissi had backed up and leaned against an outcrop, which promptly fell, taking her with it. She sat up on the ground, rubbing her tailbone and glaring warningly at anyone who looked amused. Miles offered her a hand up.

"The hell was that?" she wondered to no one, picking up a wayward stone that had fallen and rolling it between her fingers for a few seconds. "This isn't even a real rock."

Marley approached her and gestured for the stone, and Cissi handed it over absently. "They're putting fucking fake rocks out here," she groused, sucking her teeth.

"Can we get back to the problem at hand, please?" Sakushi demanded. "The key we need is in a wasp's nest."

Julia set down her field guide and moved back to the hive, followed shortly by everyone else. Only Cissi paid any mind as Ana approached Sanders, complaining of phantom pains along her spine.

"Whiny little bitch," she mumbled to herself.

Marley, with one final grunt, squeezed the fake stone again, shattering it in a cloud of clay dust. Arlo looked to the girl, who looked considerably proud of herself, as she extended a silver key wordlessly to the group.

Arlo blinked at the key, and then to the petite young woman who'd just silently broken a stone with her bare hands. "Marley... uh... found another key," he said, bemusedly.

The girl's expression fell slightly as she extended it. This one was silver, and everyone looked at each other in suspense. This meant that they won, in technicality, but only Cissi seemed to see it that way. "What the fuck are you standing around for," she asked nobody in particular.

"Look," she amended at the glances she received. "With this, at least we win."

Miles stepped forward again. "Yeah, but one of us still gets zapped," he corrected her. "We'd be better off getting a hold of the gold key instead."

His voice was gentle and coercive, as though Cissi had simply not considered the implication, though she had more than suggested that she had. "Why don't you look up," she said harshly, gesturing upwards. The sun had long since crested and begun descending. The sky to the west was already turning pink at the edges. "If we don't at least get the key out, then we all get shocked."

Savannah, who'd busied herself with picking through rubble of the felled boulder, paid no attention to the prisoner's dilemma on the other side of the wreckage. Her eyes were trained on the blue stone, carved like an arrowhead and inscribed with a somehow-familiar ten-pointed star, that had been unearthed by the blow to the ground. The end that didn't end in a point was bound in a braided rope like a pendant.

"Where's the metal detector," someone suggested, and Savannah quickly shoved the stone in her pocket before rejoining her group. "Maybe we can use it to-"

"Un- _fucking_ -believable," Faye interrupted, folding his arms at what he saw across the flat.

From across the way, Carmen looked over at them all and grinned, brandishing a homemade torch. Julia's team could only look on in dismayed awe as Cygnus thrust the lit end into a similar crevice, sending a flurry of serpents scrambling in all directions like live-wires. Ana yelped and leapt back as one crossed her path.

When he withdrew the torch again, Caroline reached in and seized the key from the nest. It glinted in her hand in the sunset. Cissi shook her head. "Son of a-"

"Move!"

Everyone jumped. No one had expected Julia capable of such a forceful command, and nobody wanted to argue. Her eyes flashed in an angry way that turned chocolate-brown a menacing black. She was already halfway down the path, charging after most of the other team, before her's followed, clamoring over their chains. Sanders and MacArthur were the second-last to start running.

The last to leave was Ari. Instead, she made her way to the pit and inserted her hand into the sand devil's nest. How the other team hadn't noticed her, she couldn't understand. Dumb luck, she decided, as she withdrew her pill bottle and gave it a good shake, causing its contents to rattle forebodingly. The venomous ones click, her ass.

Once more, only one other caught sight of her antics and didn't bother to stifle an impressed chuckle.

There's no reason to hide this inmates identity or his intentions, even though neither are particularly pure. Sakushi had hung back for a brief moment, if only to avoid stumbling g over his bound ankles for as long as he could, and gave himself a mental admonishment for underestimating the bitch. He made a mental note concerning his teammate and whatever potential she might've had, and then he turned and followed his herd, casting one final glance at the army of mustangs still standing by.

 _As he and Ari left, unseen to all but myself, another figure emerged from the herd. This one was a young maiden with beautiful blonde hair and Aryan features so perfectly crafted that she might've walked out of a white supremacist's masturbational fantasy. She smiled as she stroked the white mare's mane, unflinching, as I approached her._

 _"Still hiding in the desert, Deliverance," I asked her, offering her mount a lump of sugar from my pocket. "Or are you on orders from that employer of yours?"_

 _The girl smirked at me, though her blue eyes cut right through me to stay focused on Sakushi's retreating form. "I'm just looking for a friend," she informed me. "We only need one more, you know."_

 _"Still chomping at that bit, then," I sighed, and she nodded as though oblivious to my exasperation, though I didn't have to be near-omnipotent to know that she wasn't. I told her plainly, "It'll never succeed. You're better off just leaving, girl. You and the others have long overstayed your welcome."_

 _Deliverance narrowed her eyes, though the smile never left her face. "Who's fault is that," she chided, and I had no counterpoint for her other than a scowl. "Anyway, you know as well as I do that times running out. One of these little clouds of yours will find their way to us eventually. They always do."_

 _Again, I said nothing because what was there to say? Truthfully, I did know what she said to be true. Of the eighteen, soon one alone would hear and heed her master's call. And woe be to the seventeen who did not._

 _"I'll be off then," I said, following the inmates. She called after me just before I was out of earshot._

 _"Let's talk again soon," she cawed. "I'll be coming by tomorrow, if you don't mind."_

 _I did mind. But I'd long since learned that stopping Deliverance was something beyond even my capabilities. In some way, I learn every day how limited I am._

 _Never mind. Let us continue._

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **1904 Hours MST**

 **Medical Building, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Neither the medic, Jeanie Falser, or her staff could explain why Todd collapsed, nor could they give a reason that, as they loaded him into the medical tent, he started screaming with such ferocity that his ears started bleeding. McLean accused him of faking, threatened to shock him, before one tired-looking nursehand ordered him out of the medical tent at the expense of her employment. Jeanie had, as she tended to in times of crisis, begun to panic. Afternoon brought him a fever that steadily rose to dangerous territory and then continued to climb, as though his body had suddenly somehow forgotten homeostasis. For a while, despite McLean's warnings, she believed she may have to call the hospital in Phoenix, and then the mortuary in Bisbee.

Then the boy woke up. His temperature fell with the sun, as though it had never risen at all. They started him on an IV, and at his own insistence, released him just as dark, humanesque shapes appeared over the horizon. He squinted, looking for his team, and only managed to make out Dante's red hair in the twilight. As they got closer, he noticed their hands. All of them were carrying their chains.

He sighed, leaning his pale frame on the doorpost.

Caroline trembled as she entered the campground. She was the only one not to double over from exhaustion. Madeline Clarke was there to greet them.

"Looks like we have our winners," she said, her trademark vivacity failing to rouse anything but baleful looks. "You can keep that key as a souvenir, dear," she told Caroline, smiling. The girl, however, heaved it as far away as she could over the fence, and then drew her arms around her chest as though she'd just expelled a demon from her body. "You're a foul woman, you know that?" she asked, panting, and everyone looked at her. "I'm sorry, that sounded rude. But you are."

Surprisingly, Clarke had nothing to say, and McLean took that moment to approach them. "Congratulations," he said dryly. "You've all done well."

Again, callous silence. Caroline refused to look him in the face. McLean pursed his thin lips. "Dismissed."

 _It was fortunate for one inmate in particular that during that exchange, Julia and her team (all still bound at the ankles) returned to camp. Their arrival created a distraction from prying eyes so perfect that not even McLean could've planned it. His greeting to them was far less courteous, though it was equally monotone. Sanders and MacArthur arrived on the scene just as Truman pulled the silver key from Julia._

"Amphitheater. One hour."

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **1921 Hours MST**

 **Kovanah Rd., Outside the Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

It had only been a day since they'd been led down this road like cattle. Less than a week ago, they had been free. It didn't seem fair to Adam, no fairer than it had been before, no more right than it had been when it happened to him. Tony nudged him faithfully with his brown nose and a nervous whine, his big eyes reproachful.

"I don't like it here either, big guy," said Adam reassuringly, patting his horse's muzzle.

A clamor of hoofbeats thundered from nowhere. He sensed his brother before he heard him speak. "Then you shouldn't keep hanging around out here."

Adam sighed as he turned, watching as Jace dismounted his own steed and sauntered over to him, the dry wind lifting and rustling his russet tresses like a familiar greeting. "There's nothing here for you, little bro," he said, using the same derisive pet name he always had, as though nothing had changed.

"Someone else is going to die tonight," Adam informed him softly. "I can feel it. What if… what if the others come back? Or what if the Knights-"

Jace shook his head. "Then you tried. You protested, you warned them all through construction… No one wanted to listen. But-"

"But nothing," Adam groused. "I didn't want this to happen."

As a calloused hand came to rest on his shoulder, the younger brother sighed. He looked small for seventeen, with darker hair and smaller muscles than his big brother, and a fraction of his strength. Whether it be from inner demons or external ones, it seemed that Jace was always coming to his rescue. Adam constantly fought not to believe that, after all these years, Jace had come to see him as a burden.

"C'mon," Jace said, smiling a broad smile that only marginally perked up his stern features. "Let's race. Monty needs the exercise."

At the mention of his name, Jace's steed turned his attention to the boys. Adam had always loved Monty's coloration, a rich, dark obsidian that glistened iridescently in the sunlight.

"Everything's going be okay," Jace promised.

Adam focused on Tony's mottled coat, not looking at his brother. He had heard that before. Twice. Neither time had it been true.

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **2044 Hours MST**

 **Amphitheater, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Gumbo was served for dinner. Cissi, ever the pugilist, called it an affront to Louisiana's cuisine and abandoned her plate after a single bite. She was the only person on either team to refuse food, as well as the only inmate not too terrified to complain. Everyone else ate in silence. Ana struggled against crying the entire meal, but tonight no one confronted her on her egregiousness. Faye sat alone, far from everyone else.

How could they have known?

The question repeated itself, over and over, in Faye's head as he surveyed the expanse of land before him. How had they known enough to make the key?

Even in his turmoil he could sense Lana before he heard her heavy footsteps on the sand behind him, and he sighed as she invited herself to join him tentatively. He didn't much feel like chasing her off; actually, the company might've been a welcome reprieve from the silence. There was When Lana

"So," he started, tapering off. Lana waited for him to continue, and then raised her eyebrows when he didn't.

"Well," she shot him a disinterested half-grin. "You should really write a book on conversational skills."

Faye gave her an offhand chuckle. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

Lana leaned back disinterestedly, flicking her hair back with her hand. The both of them were still sweating profusely in the midday heat, and looking on over their surroundings was a unique sort of uncomfortable. The girl nodded at him to continue.

"Yesterday, you said you trusted me," Faye began slowly, and Lana gave him a small nod of acknowledgement. "I don't really understand why."

Lana shrugged. "Not like I had too many choices."

 _Truthfully, she didn't. But there was another reason Lana had that she will not divulge until its too late. Therefore, it falls to me to do so._

 _Lana trusted Faye because, without any pretense, she understood him, or at least she allowed herself to believe she did._

 _To an extent, she was correct. Faye was indeed the dysphoric, irritable, and yet good-hearted young man she pegged him to be, but then again, she also got one thing horribly wrong._

 _You will learn that thing shorty. Until then I must ask you for your patience._

Faye gave her a sideways glance. His hand instinctively found the dark-purple marks that laced his arms. 'Hemosiderin staining', his doctor called them; an uncommon and permanent purpling of the skin, usually on the lower legs and resultant of venous ulcers. Except these weren't caused by any anatomical malfunction.

"So, you trust me before you know me," Faye asked. "That seems stupid, doesn't it?"

Lana looked at him. "I think I get it. You're feeling trapped, emotional, and afraid. There's a lot you want to say to a lot of different people, but then you find yourself-"

With catlike agility, he pulled her close and hissed something indecipherable in her ear. From across the stage, Miles noticed Lana's expression melt into an abject look of horror as she pulled away. He cocked his head in confusion. Everyone had long stopped eating by the time anyone else said anything. To everyone's surprise, it was Carmen.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way," she announced to the silence masses, shocking everyone further. She didn't flinch when everyone's eyes focused in on her. "It was my idea to steal the metal detector, no one else's. I didn't want to screw you guys over, and we're all sorry it had to end this way."

Even in Ephraim's isolated silence, no one could figure her angle. Her words seemed genuine, maybe they were, but the lack of regret in her voice made the whole thing seem more gloating than she intended. Perhaps Carmen realized this because, when she at down again, she averted her eyes uncharacteristically.

From his spot on the bench, Dante sucked his teeth under his breath. "Weak-ass bitch…"

"Thanks," Miles said, warily, and Carmen acknowledged him with a half-nod. Regardless of individual tension, they all seemed to understand each other. None of this was personal, they all still had one enemy and one enemy alone.

There was almost a solidarity between them for a moment. Marley believed that this is what drew McLean into their midst. He narrowed his eyes at them all, saying nothing as guards filtered into the crowd and quite literally dragged the losing team forward.

If there was truly any solidarity between them, however, it was about to be destroyed. Dante, after all, would do anything for his art.

"The sun is about to set, meaning that that there's only two ways those chains are coming off, only eight of you get the better option."

Julia's team rose to their feet exasperatingly, expecting immediately some grueling physical exercise, only to be directed to form a line on the stage. "Coleman," McLean thundered at Dante, "your team's job is to pick who gets the key."

The inmates all reacted to this, even Dante was taken aback. "You're out of your goddamn mind if you think I'm gonna do that." he told him. "No one's picking who you fucking brutalize, old ma-"

McLean didn't bother with shocking the boy. He simply reared back and slugged him hard across the face, sending him staggering backwards. Dante clapped one hand to his eye where the Colonel's hand had made contact; a trail of blood seeping out from under his fingers.

The Artist growled and started toward his assailant, "You son of-"

"One more word, Coleman," McLean warned, fingering his holster, and Dante backed down with his muscles coiled like steel ropes. "If there's nothing else then," he continued, "let's get voting. Hands up for who you want to free, everyone gets one vote."

His instructions were so curt and causal that one would think they were playing a game of some sort. Julia drew her arms around her chest as he approached her.

"Anyone?" asked the Colonel to the crowd.

Immediately, to Julia's overwhelming surprise, Carmen's hand shot up in a fist for solidarity, as did Cygnus'. "That's two," McLean nodded, before moving on to Miles, who received one hand from Bastion. Sakushi was saved by Savannah, and Faye and Lana were saved by Caroline and Ari, respectfully.

The game ticked on for a few more agonizing moments. It came down to Todd and Cissi, and only Ana had yet to vote. The two still on the chopping block faced each other, Cissi glaring, Todd looking off into space, as though ten-thousand miles away.

He didn't look at all surprised when Ana didn't choose.

"Can't say I'm surprised," McLean said, laughter emanating in his voice. "You copped out today, Nickelson. This is what happens to quitters."

Everyone averted their eyes as Todd's heart leapt into his throat. There was a single second of whirling noise, a slow blink of bleak resignation. Then, the screaming began.

 _With a strangled cry, Ari turned, and she ran._

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **2213 Hours MST**

 **Garages, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

It was pure luck that the white van that had brought Set here was left unlocked. They had been prepared to shatter the windshield, had it been necessary.

One eye focused on the door, they crouched low as they withdrew the small bottle of antifreeze from the glove compartment. Against their side, in the waistband of their stiff jeans, they felt the cool steel of the kitchen knife they'd stolen.

They were grateful to whatever divinity they didn't believe in that no one had discovered Fenton's body yet, just as they were grateful that nobody had come to find them.

No one else had to die tonight.

* * *

 **August 6th, 2015**

 **2234 Hours MST**

 **Boy's Barracks, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

He and Miles had moved Todd to his bunk. The Blind Bat had continued to spasm and jerk long after the initial electrocution had worn off and, according to Jeanie, his pulse had steadied itself. His legs had swollen to twice their normal size, with furious red lines going up his legs like fork lightening. They had intended to leave him to rest, though Miles had opted to stay and keep watch, if he woke up.

It was good fortune, on Sakushi's part, that Ari had been waiting outside the barracks. The Disavower's cheeks and eyes were flushed pink, and her lips trembled in a way that told the boy she'd been crying.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning to go. "I want to see if he was alright."

Never one for boundaries, Sakushi seized Ari by the shoulder and whirled her around as soon as they were out of earshot. "I liked what I saw today in the challenge," he grinned at her.

Ari sniffed. "He made us choose-"

"Don't ruin it by talking," Sakushi cut her off, rolling his eyes. "Look, you wanna get out of here?"

The Disavower blinked. "Get... get out of here?" Sakushi nodded, and Ari folded her hands over her bottle. "I… I don't think so," she said lamely. "There's... well, there's no way we'd make it, first of all…"

As she spoke, she moved to leave, only for the Con Artist to maneuver around her so that he stood in front of her once more. "Obviously," he purred, "you have no concept of who I am. Sakushi Hasu never gets caught."

"If that were true, you wouldn't be here," Ari huffed, pushing past him again. "I'm not interested in-"

"Lamotrigine."

Ari stopped dead in her tracks, still facing away. "I don't know what you're-"

"THat's what's in your bottle, right? Lamotrigine? A mood stabilizing lithium compound for manic bipolar episodes... I've been smuggling that across borders before you were taking your first ballet class, princess, and I know what it does. I also know what happens when it runs out."

The Disavower turned. "So?"

Sakushi sighed. "So, do you honestly think McLean gives a damn about medication here? You're running low, sweetheart, and you're here indefinitely. I'd wanna get out if I were you, is all I'm saying. But," he shrugged and said in a sing-song manner, "I guess that's your prerogative."

The Disavower still refused to turn, but her grip on her pills tightened so that he knuckles whitened. Her supply was indeed running low, even more so now since the raid this morning broke a handful of capsules.

"I'm sure someone will-"

"No, they won't." he cut her off again. "I mean, I guess if you guys keep winning, you might keep the mania," Sakushi continued. "I just hope you can lose without going _psycho_."

This time, Ari whirled around, her eyes flashing. "Don't call me a psycho, you fucking criminal."

But Sakushi only smiled and quirked an eyebrow and Ari shrank under the sincerity of his gaze. For all his insolence, the boy wasn't wrong. Nobody here, least of all McLean, would be of any help if she couldn't keep her condition in check. "I'll be in touch," he muttered, "if you change your mind."

And away he went.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **0155 Hours MST**

 **Abigail's Garden, Outside the Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Bastion found this place on accident. He had assumed the hogback a ways away from the campsite was nothing more than rocks that offered a hiding place from prying eyes. He was mortified to learn that he and Cygnus had been having sex on a graveyard.

"Maybe it isn't," Cygnus offered, still panting slightly from shock and exertion. "It's just a name, maybe someone carved their name on there as a memento."

The Doll nodded weakly, wanting to believe him. He wished that Cygnus hadn't used the word memento, it reminded him too much of what happened earlier. _Memento mori_ , remember ye shall die.

The desert night, lit by the moon and the explosion of stars above, seemed less romantic now than it had an hour ago. The dramatic peaks of the rock and the soft carpeting of sweetgrass weren't at all inviting alongside the chipped bit of white marble pressed firmly into the hard earth, which bore a single epithet and nothing else.

' L'

Bastion shook his head and flopped down on an outcrop a few feet away from the stone. The long lashes of the dead grass batted at his nude body in the cold wind, drying the sweat he'd built up. He closed his eyes, smiling slightly as Cygnus bedded down beside him, his tourmaline eyes roving over the sky above them as though he were reading a message within them.

"There I am," Cygnus whispered, grinning and pointing up at the pinpricked darkness. Bastion followed his hand up to an array shaped like a malformed cross; a line of stars guarded on either side by wings of light. "That's Cygnus," the Islander informed him, brushing one of his dreadlocks away from his terra-cotta face. Bastion gently nuzzled his face into the smaller boy's shoulder. He'd never been one for staying and cuddling after the fact, but there wasn't much left to do other than redress and risk returning to the barracks, which he didn't want to do until he was sure the guards had gone off to bed.

He had hoped to keep their relationship professional, he was sure their deal would fall apart if either of them caught feelings, but Bastion found that he enjoyed Cygnus' company for more than just a corporeal distraction. He wished things could be different; he might've actually gotten a chance to get to know him for real in different circumstances.

He shook his head. That sort of thinking was dangerous.

"You're named for the constellation?" Bastion asked, folding his arms behind his head. His stomach gurgled as he moved, and he wished that dinner had been more substantial. Cygnus nodded.

"My people," he started with a sigh, "they used the constellation as a marker. They didn't know it as Cygnus, but they knew it, and they used it as guidance. Cygnus always points to home, she always said."

Bastion smiled. What little Cygnus spoke, he always lit up when speaking of his family or his heritage. The two of them had been copulating fairly regularly over the past few days, whenever either of them felt threatened to be overcome by their situation. He felt incredibly guilty that he still knew so little about him.

"How did you get here?" he asked him finally, expecting the boy's face to fall behind it's shield of dried mud. Instead, he offered him a bitter chortle and turned to his new lover with a smile made entirely of regret.

"I made a mistake," he said, with a finality that Bastion understood. "You?"

The Sex Doll shrugged. "I made a lot of mistakes."

Cygnus hummed as the earth surrounding them settled. A wayward coyote padded across the distance, a beetle skirted out from the grass under his shoulder. This place could've been so nice, if not for people.

 _The same could be said of most things._

"It really sucks," he said. "We learned about the Kovanah and their plight in my civics class last year. I wanted to see this place, before they tore it apart."

Bastion sighed, crossing his arms behind his head. "I've already seen enough," he mumbled. Cygnus assumed he looked confused, because he continued, "when I was little, my mother used to drive my older brother and I out here for a week every summer. My family is descended from the Kovanah, on my mother's side. Every year, she would always bring us here so I could see our culture, and I hated every second of it."

Cygnus looked at his companion as though he'd struck him. "My culture…," he began softly, "is everything that I am. If I didn't have that, I wouldn't have anything."

"It wasn't something to do with my ancestry," Bastion said quickly, startled by the effect his words had had. "It was that… everyone on the reserve wanted me to leave. They all said that this place... it was bad for me to be here."

His words stirred his memories like a slow, foul wind. The feelings of unexplainable malaise that would descend upon him when he walked onto Ephraim Ridge, the way the Kovanah would shrink from his presence and usher their children away from him as though he carried a disease. The last time he came here, he had been eight years old, long before his world ended in that godless hotel-

Being here now that everyone's been chased off…" he said, cutting off that train of thought, "I really feel like I'm trespassing."

Cygnus turned over on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. In the light of the full moon, only the whites of his eyes were visible under his perpetual mud-mask. Even when they were bathing together, Cygnus made an effort to hide his face. Bastion had, effectively, never seen it.

"Your brother's the one who gave you the pendant that the Colonel took, right?" he asked, and then more delicately, "is he… still with us?"

Bastion licked his lips and pressed them together, staring off into the distance. He wasn't sure how to answer him.

"He's not with me," he compromised eventually.

The Islander's calloused hand fumbled for his in the dark. "Part of our deal was that we would look out for each other, remember," Cygnus asked him. "If something's bothering you, you'd tell me. Right?"

 _There was a lot that Bastion didn't tell him, because he couldn't. Not yet. As for Cygnus, he had a great many secrets too. Far more than Bastion did, actually. Most of these, all but one, he would carry to his grave._

For the moment, both boys stared plaintively up at the endless expanse of black above them, wishing for it to swallow them, for it to take them away from this place forever. Cygnus closed his eyes at the burgeoning ache rattling within his chest. Perhaps, he reasoned, one could only be separated from their heart for so long. As if sensing his turmoil, Bastion leaned over and placed his lips on Cygnus' neck, adjusting his position and pulling him close. His lover's pulse quickened against his lips.

"C'mon," he coaxed him, hoping he could be distracted, a coy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. One hand softly migrated down Cygnus' defined hip, eliciting a pleasured moan from the Transplant. "Let's go again, before we go back."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **0237 Hours MST**

 **Staff Housing, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Set's footsteps were soft, staccato, as they padded the hardened earth outside the staff lounge. The bottle they carried, which had been full when they'd arrived, now sloshed and foamed absently as they twirled it. Their face sweated against the wooden backing of their mask.

Surely, it wouldn't be that much longer. They had learned from their previous mistakes.

The night droned on for a while, the guards made as merry as they had the night before, the absence of their missing fellow never once entering the conversation. Of the fifteen remaining, only one retired early, the one who'd come to Fenton's defense earlier in the day.

Set had hidden when he stumbled outside to vomit amidst jeers from the others, all of them guffawing at him for being a lightweight as he collapsed in a shaking, sweating mass, none of them suspecting. Perfect.

By the time they had all stumbled back to their rooms, leaving the young man passed out on the couch ("Let him sleep it off," Redhead had commanded), it was too late.

Set slid open the door and let themselves in as soon as they noticed the commotion. When they clicked on the light, they found the young man seated upright on the couch, doubled over, retching pitifully between his knees and he struggled mightily to continue breathing. "Oh, Mr. Walters," Set said. "You don't look well."

The young man didn't look well, truly. He was grey, his lips white and cracked, with swollen veins running like purple rivers along his flesh as Set's venom burned within them. His fingers trembled as he reached for his radio, just out of his reach. Set grinned as they stepped between the boy and his goal, barring his efforts while avoiding the growing puddle of bloody vomit on the floor. "It's amazing how sweet they make antifreeze," they said as they approached him, taking a delicate sniff of their bottle. "You can slip it right in someone's dinner without them knowing. You should be proud for holding out this long; most people would've died a lot sooner."

The guard could barely register them for his convulsing, but Set didn't seem to mind. "It didn't have to be this way," they whispered, looking down at the guard. "I didn't this, you know. I never wanted any of this."

Mr. Walters gagged again, splashing the ground and his hands with dark, frothy red. "Please," he begged. "Please, help me-"

"Don't worry, Mr. Walters," Set said, standing. "I already did, just like I helped Mr. Fenton."

 _I was there, seated on the couch opposite the dying boy, devouring the scene before me. Mr. Walters, I believe, could see me, but he paid me little mind for favor of Set. For all that I am, I was only there to watch, and watch I did as he convulsed within his own flesh as though he were trying to shrug it off like an overcoat._

Only when the boy's body began jerking and spasming, when the poison boiled his nerves away and his eyes began taking on the milky glaze of expiration, did Set remove her mask.

"You…?" gasped Mr. Walters, though it didn't come out in words. It came out in liquified heap with the rest of his organs.

She replied, smiling, "Me."

 **December 5th, 2020**

 **1832 Hours MST**

 **Dolman Auditorium, Westwood University of the Arts - Santa Monica, California**

 _Savannah Warren blinked fiercely at the tears accumulating in her lashes. "A lot of people went bad at Ephraim. The was no single thing that led to the Atrocity, it was just a great culmination of terrible things, but… she set it into motion. But she didn't mean to, I don't think… she'd lost so much already. She'd lost so much."_

 _I nodded. I had other questions, but as she spoke, a few security guards shined a flashlight at me from the aisle and asked me, politely as you please, to go. None of them looked me in the face. The glistening bottle-green in Savannah's eyes followed me as I left. Once, in another life it seemed, her eyes had been softer._

 _When I stepped out of the door, into the California sunlight, he was seated on the steps leading out to the quad, leaning heavily on his right arm and looking out over the souls littering the quad. A shirtless, dreadlocked maverick plucked his guitar. Two sorority girls handed out pamphlets and cookies with cheerful smiles._

" _Its like a prison, isn't it," he said breathlessly, lifelessly. "More than Ephraim ever was."_

 _I asked him, "What is?"_

" _This freedom."_

* * *

 **Okay, I'm trash. Please use the rocks I've provided at no expense to you to stone me to death. 'Get it out by Christmas', my ass, right?**

 **As some of you may know, I decided to sell my soul for academia, and being in my final year and doing adult stuff is unpleasant. Although I will say I got into my top choice for grad school, so there's that!**

 **I do have some news for you guys, though: The institute isn't in America; this will be my final entry as a US citizen. In order to start a new chapter in my life, and to be closer to my remaining family, my wife and I are relocating to Lerwick at the end of April and officially waiving our citizenship. So, to the people who have PMed me since the last chapter and advised that I 'get out' since I hate Trump so much... you're welcome. But the ACA is staying, y'all can't do anything about that.**

 **I will, however be keeping up with politics here and including updates on the DAPL, which Drumpf has officially given clearance to and I will keep fighting it, as I encourage you guys to do as well. This also means I'll have less time than usual to work on the next chapter, so I'll have to ask your patience a bit longer.**

 **In the interim, I wonder how you guys who know what I'm talking about feel about a role-play forum for the story? A few people have suggested it to me, and while I couldn't be too involved, it might give you all something to do while you wait for my tardy ass to update? I'll probably make one before too long, and we'll see how it goes from there. Expect more information shortly.**

 **At any rate, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. No matter where I am in the world, you remain** _ **mes amies.**_

 _ **A bientot**_ **,**

 **Obsidios**


	7. Day III: The Pit and the Pendulum

_For being fifteen, Jizo Aihara was a small boy. He had always assumed that this was because he took after his mother with his pale skin and the hooded eyes, as well as the delicate bone structure that allowed the white children who lived near his neighborhood to dwarf him. Now that he was surrounded by children who looked like him, comparatively, he might've considered himself tall, though of course he did not. Pound for pound, Jizo felt like the smallest creature in the world._

 _His sister, Izumi, sat restlessly at his side, gently rocking the toddler in her lap with the motion of the bus. Her terror was still evident; tears brimmed her eyes so heavily that her pastel irises looked like cracked glass. Jizo bit his lip as she leaned over and asked shakily, in Japanese, "Where are they taking us?"_

 _He should've corrected her, as Mother would've, for slipping into her native tongue, but right then the thought of scolding his siblings, or doing anything other than protecting them with every ounce of his being, seemed implausible. Further, . He clicked his tongue and craned his long neck over the seat, scanning the bus for someone who gave any semblance of authority. Almost instantly he recognized the white woman who'd urged them to board quickly earlier; she stood fidgeting, clutching the railing overhead with a gloved hand and gnawing on her painted-red lip. He was grateful that she was standing close enough that he could get her attention without standing, as they had been asked not to do._

 _"Excuse me," he beckoned her softly, enunciating as clearly as he could in his limited English. "Where are we going?"_

 _The woman didn't seem to hear him at first. Her eyes darted through the bus windows into the night, as though worried that someone had followed them into the desert. Her face betrayed no readable confusion, from which Jizo inferred that he'd pronounced everything correctly._

 _"Somewhere safe," she whispered assuringly, offering him a small smile. "We've set up a refugee camp on an old reservation in Ephraim Ridge."_

* * *

 **February 28th, 1945**

 **2105 Hours MST**

 **Outside Ephraim Ridge - The Sonoran Desert, Arizona**

 _From her place atop the hogback, Deliverance and I watched together as the bus carried Jizo, his family, and seventy-three other children of Japanese origin onto the crag. Deliverance stood daintily, balancing perfectly on the utmost lip of the jagged peak, as though her feet had been swallowed by the stone around them. In one hand, she held a dandelion with such intense care that one could easily believe it a snowflake._

 _From my place at her side, I watched her prepare for her performance. Dandelions didn't flourish at Ephraim Ridge; the few seeds that managed to land here shriveled within a few days of rooting if something didn't eat them first. She hadn't picked the weed herself, surely. Someone, I knew, had given it to her._

 _"This doesn't concern you," she had told me absently as she waited for the shape of the bus to crest the dusty horizon, and I had smiled ruefully. I could stand next to most people and shout at the top of my lungs, and I would still go entirely unnoticed if I so willed it. Deliverance Osbourne wasn't like most people, however, and I should say it was far more than her ability to perceive me that made her dangerous._

 _I merely laughed. "The Kovanah," I whispered to myself. "They warned them, you know, about bringing children here, before they chased them all off. Deliverance wasn't listening. "These people are evil." she hissed, lifting her dandelion to her lips. I corrected her, "In some manner or another, all humans are evil."_

 _She scoffed as though I'd said something incredibly stupid, as if she knew something I did not that totally invalidated my statement. "He is not," she whispered adoringly, pulling her eyes away from her prey and looking to the stars. I followed her gaze with annoyance._

 _Of course, she was wrong._

 _The clamor of opening gates pulled us from our musing, and I could do nothing but watch as the bus passed through a chain-link fence, which closed and locked behind it. The Second World War had changed people, I urge you to look it up if you are unfamiliar. Not even President Roosevelt remained untouched. But the Quaker Society for Pacific Refugees, which chartered that bus and built its destination, was not a part of Order 9066. Then again, they also weren't Quaker, nor were they in any way 'for' Pacific refugees. But I am getting ahead of myself._

 _Deliverance lifted the plant in her hand to the wind, and the fluff thereupon swayed and rustled softly. "This time, it was a man. A worker. I told him and his friends to leave, and do you know what they tried to do to me?"_

 _I was hardly listening; my attention stayed cemented on the bus, roving ever closer to the waiting gate. "Like lambs to the slaughter," I whispered, swallowing. Even then, I could feel myself being drawn to the encampment below, by the dreadful promise of what was to follow. I didn't see or hear Deliverance blow the spores from her dandelion, I only saw an icy wind from nowhere carrying them into distance, over the fence and into the compound._

 _Overhead, the stars were beginning to fall._

* * *

 **Total Reform:**

 **The Ephraim Atrocity**

 **Day III: The Pit and the Pendulum**

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **0525 Hours MST**

 **Masterson's Landing - Ephraim Ridge**

Faye watched as his breath rose and dissipated against the pink of the sunrise, fighting against teeth chattering for fear of tearing the chapped areas on his lips. The inmates did not receive coats of any sort, which Faye had theorized was another measure to keep them in the barracks at night. He sighed at he irony; he knew he'd be wanted this cold later, when the heat of the desert threatened to smother him. He wrinkled his nose as he changed position; he'd done what he could to tidy up in the seven-minute shower he was allotted despite his numbness, though he still smelled faintly of sweat and sand. He wondered if that would ever go away, provided he was ever released.

Lana knew the truth now. He had been stupid enough to tell her, and he had may well signed his freedom over for good in doing so. Faye sighed again and lowered himself onto the ground, letting his legs dangle over the precipice, avoiding looking down. How could he have been so goddamn careless?

"Fancy seeing you here."

Faye seized and made a mad grab to steady himself, pulling himself back onto the plateau before reflex pulled his eyes down. His face burned as he turned to his assailant, anger and embarrassment flooding his cheeks in equal measure. The intruder was a girl, one from the other team, with auburn hair pulled haphazardly into oversized pincurls. It was obviously meant to be glamorous, like some 1940's celebutante, and had she had the means to do it correctly perhaps it would've been. Presently, Faye considered it a wasted effort.

"What are you doing here," he asked her harshly, somewhat annoyed that he'd let her scare him. He'd yet to learn her name, even though he'd heard her addressed by it more than once. Arielle sighed to herself as she strode over to the edge, further than Faye had been willing to go, and set herself on the lip of the incline. It was starting to seem that she couldn't do much without someone responding with hostility. "I suppose," she started slowly, "I'm simply looking for a place to think before the day starts."

Ari hadn't been lying, certainly. There were a good few things she needed to think about, not least of which was Todd, and Sakushi's ultimatum.

Faye lofted a brow and pushed a hand through his white hair, avoiding approaching the girl for her proximity to the edge. He'd never liked heights, not even in the best of times. "I might ask you the same question," she continued. "It appeared as though you were rather fixated upon the sun. I was afeared you might've been trying to blind yourself."

"I was looking at the coyote," Faye informed her curtly, finding himself even more incensed by her dialect. They were in a prison compound and she was still trying to pass herself off as some dated starlet-wannabe or something. The girl turned back to him slightly. "Coyote?"

"Yeah, the coyote, right-" Faye stopped himself as he redirected his gaze. The animal had gone. Ari - he thought that was her name at least - looked at him quizzically. "I didn't see any coyote."

"Well, it was there."

Ari rolled her eyes. She didn't see why he was getting defensive and it didn't appear that he did either, but she didn't really need any other inclination that she wasn't welcome here. Faye took notice of how she stood: her feet were poised and angled to where it looked like she was walking on her toes. When she stepped, she seemed to avoid the rough patches of clay in their entirety, which explained how she managed to walk barefoot out this far. Faye had bound his feet in scraps of cloth, and even those had offered only minuscule protection. Really, he didn't know why'd he'd trekked out this far anyway. He obviously wasn't supposed to leave the barracks, the only reason he had was that e couldn't sleep, and someone had left a key in the door at some point in the night.

"I'll see you back at the cabin," Ari told him as she took her leave. She threw her head back dramatically a final time. "This view is rather lovely, wouldn't you say?"

Faye shot back, "No."

The Disavower sighed again and bounded off, her feet only striking the compact clay in staccato, never once love so much as a footprint. Faye continued staring, eyes narrowed at the expanse over the Landing, searching for the coyote that seemed to have vanished into thin air. The boy shook his head. Two days in, and he was already losing it.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **0543 Hours**

 **Total Reform Compound - Ephraim Ridge**

"I still can't believe you bought that stupid phone."

"You're just jealous that I actually get service out here."

"All you're doing is talking to Brady about burritos," Sanders quipped, and MacArthur gave her a look and tucked her screen into her holster. It was the new McGrady model; half her last paycheck for a phone made entirely of touchscreen glass and the ability to pick up a signal from towers states away. Sanders considered it a waste of money,, especially when they were patrolling a "Thats an invasion of privacy, Officer. A violation-"

"This whole thing is a violation, pigs."

Both women looked to the next stop in their patrol a few meters away. There was another girl standing at the main gate, a young woman no older than nineteen with flowing blonde hair and snide lips as pale-pink as orchid petals. She had a dazed, unfocused look in her eyes that more than conveyed her state of sobriety, hampered by the cold curl of her sneering lips and her bare breasts pressed against the chain-link fence. She chuckled at the expression the two women wore. "And you two know that damn well, don't you?"

The officers stared at the woman, dumbstruck, and she stared back at them. They currently didn't have the authority to arrest her unless she was within the compound, but even then all they could do was charge her for trespassing and, to their great chagrin, she seemed to know that. The girl stood back enough, made no threatening gesture, and left them both feeling utterly useless. MacArthur snarled under her breath.

"Something we can help you with, ma'am," she asked, clenching her tongue between her teeth.

The girl chuckled again. "Call me Deliverance, babe," she cooed, curling her fingers through the fence. "And I'm only telling you this once, you and your fat friend should really get out of here."

Sanders gave the girl a once-over, cocking her neck. "I'm afraid we can't do that, ma'am. I may have to ask you to leave though."

Again, the girl laughed. "Tell you ladies what," she quipped, pressing her nose into the grating. "I'll give you two days. But you won't live to see them."

MacArthur stepped forward. "You know I could have you arrested for threatening an officer?'

In the distance, behind the girl, Sanders noted a different presence, one even more disconcerting that the nude girl. The multitude of horses from yesterday, led by the bone-white mare at the center. Deliverance moved one hand from the grating and extended it, and the horse approached her submissively as though signaled. The others followed behind it like an army following its general.

"I'd love to see you try." Deliverance quipped, stroking her mare's nose, and then as though she hadn't just seemingly summoned an army from nowhere, asked innocently, "Why would you even come here? I don't need to tell you this, of course, but nobody sent you."

This gave both women a start. "Shut up," Sanders hissed urgently. "How do you know that?"

"You're here just as illegally as me," Deliverance continued. "And your snooping is about to be the end of both of you. But then again, I guess you two should consider yourselves lucky."

"And why is that?"

Deliverance smiled sedately, happy to be so high that their idiocy couldn't phase her. "Nineteen, twenty," she sang. "Blood a-plenty."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **0550 Hours MST**

 **Medical Tent, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Todd had awoken earlier that night incoherent with agony, and there was little anyone in the barracks could do to sedate him. Janine had insisted, once again, on taking him to a hospital. McLean could not be found, and so Truman refused in his place, mumbling something about morphine in the medical tent.

It took seven of Redhead's grunts to move him. Cygnus had been the only one to cry; bursting into an onslaught of tears that even Bastion couldn't cease when Todd had begged him for death on the way out. Cissi was one of the many girls to be awoken by his screaming.

"Kill me!" his voice echoed in her head. "Please, kill me!"

It had been her fault, and she knew that. The least she could do now was to see him. She told herself this as she entered the tent, the other half of her brain

Every vein in her body twisted at the sight of him, and Cissi had to press her free hand against the wall to keep a sudden surge of dizziness from overcoming her. Todd's entire body was rigid against his bunk, his muscles clenched and inflamed so heavily that she wondered how his flesh had still managed to contain them. She breathed choppily through her mouth as she approached him, studying the angry, glistening patches on his shins, the gradient starting at his exposed thighs which turned erratically from pale to bright red downwards like a madman's finger painting.

"Shit," Cissi breathed, sucking in her cheeks. He'd been awake, how long? A little over an hour? And then they jolted him right back into darkness, and for what? What had been the point? To break them further, to exert some barbaric dominance? Every plausible explanation only nauseated her further. "Shit," she said again, because that was all she could say.

"I didn't know anyone else would be in here."

Cissi groaned. Ana rose from the bed she'd been sitting on. "Sorry-"

"Why're you apologizing?"

Ana wrung her hands nervously. "I just thought-"

Cissi pushed past her, "Well don't do that."

"Damn, girl," another voice chimed in, and Cissi wondered if murder would get her sentence expanded. Dante leaned against the doorframe, smirking.

"What's a bad bitch like you care about his white ass for?" he asked. His voice was mix of purring and chiding, as though he were disguising an actual annoyance through teasing, and Cissi found she quite didn't like it. Not even fear of further disturbing Todd could stop her hissing in annoyance when the red-head's hands began squeezing her shoulders in what she could only assume was meant to be a massage.

"You can hold the fuck up," she growled, swatting his hands away and flipping her curls away from her neck. "I ain't even swing like that, coullion."

Dante squinted at the tattoo on her neck; a double-Venus with two raised fists in the centers of the interlocking circles. He wasn't entirely familiar with the symbolism, but he could guess well enough. He sucked his teeth, "Fag and dykes," he said under his breath, pushing past Cissi and moving over to the cabinets on the opposite side of the room. "This place is a shit-show."

Ana slid her chair slightly as Dante passed her, her lips pressed. So much for escaping the tension, she thought ruefully to herself. "That's some ignorant shit," Cissi volleyed back at him, no longer minding her volume. "What'd you even come in here for, other than to be a dick?"

Dante didn't seem to hear her, and Ana winced as Cissi's pique rose further at being ignored. She looked to be just about to yell again when he finally responded offhandedly. "I'm looking for where they keep the paint," he groused. "The coat on this building is fresh, so I figured it'd be in here."

Ana looked up. "I don't think they'd keep paint with the medical equipment-"

"Was I fucking talking to you, bitch?"

Dante hadn't seemed annoyed by her suggestion, ironically that was the most cordial his tone had sounded in the two days she'd known him, but his words still felt like a well-aimed punch to the larynx, and her eyes began to sting. Cissi gave her a look somewhere between annoyance and sympathy as she stood without excusing herself, and left.

"We in a prison," Dante stated bluntly before Cissi could say anything else. "You know neither of us have time to coddle her ass."

The Soubrette lifted her lip in a scowl. "Why don't you get the morphine you really came in here for and get out?"

The Artist cocked a brow. "That transparent, huh?"

"I'm waiting."

Dante raised his hands defensively and went on his way, his pockets bugling. Cissi, eyes still trained on him, didn't notice Todd stirring.

"S'not the worst thing in the world," he whispered, startling her. "Hurts like a bitch," he continued slowly, through a locked jawbone, "but I'll make it."

The Soubrette breathed. "You one stubborn bastard, coullion," she muttered disapprovingly, as though he were in the wrong for evading death, that he'd had the choice and chosen wrong. He was about to respond when their collars both sounded again, piercing the air.

Todd jackknifed into a sitting position and whipped his hand in front of his eyes, making his stunned muscles scream out in agony. He gave a pained hack, his body twisting forward involuntarily, and Cissi leapt back. Todd blinked as the currents of pain faded to static, forcing himself to breathe. He hadn't returned to the field, and his vision remained as dark as ever.

Cissi shook her head, "The fu- Todd? What are you doing?"

The Blind Bat turned to her voice. That was the first time anyone here had ever addressed him by his name. "I'm going to morning workout," he said, pushing past her. "McLean isn't shocking my ass again."

"You can barely stand."

Todd shrugged her off. "And I'm not sticking my neck out for you any more, tortue."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **0630 Hours MST**

 **Courtyard, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Morning workout had been trounced for favor group therapy, presided over by Clarke. No one knew whether to complain or not. It started with a long, rather droning recorded interview with some meth-head who discussed his poor life choices, all the while sounding about as faded as anything any of them had ever heard. Lauro and Lana spent the entirety of the exchange trying not to laugh. Cygnus fell asleep halfway through.

It was, all things considered, the lightest moment they all had shared since coming to Ephraim Ridge. Each of them had received an unmarked envelope, which they didn't much understand. None of them were aware if they'd gotten any mail here.

When it concluded - or rather, the meth-head slipped into incoherence - Clarke stepped up before everyone. "He was an honor student when he was your ages," she said ruefully, fingering her broach, and even a few of the guards rolled their eyes. "Now, what I'd like for us to do is an exercise in self-reflection. If you'll all open the envelopes you received."

They as they were told, and all levity evaporated. Carmen particularlyÂ felt her insides freeze. â€œH-How did you get this information?â€

Carmen Marie had never been one for outward reflection; she never cared for the opinions of others, the idea being a social pariah was one she regarded with a lukewarm mindset. Still, having this out in the open could be a death sentence.

Clarke smiled. "Well, dear, the... details of your sentencing are rather important documents. Of course we would have them-"

Carmen stood, "I'm not talking about the sentencing. You know damn well what I'm talking about."

Clarke clapped twice hastily and guards immediately converged on the girl. Carmen bit the inside of her cheek as Clarke's fingers travelled to her broach; she could almost feel her collar buzz in anticipation.

"I promise you," Clarke said. "This is all done in the name of recovery. The first step in healing is confronting the problem head on. It's like ripping off a band-aid."

Around her, other inmates were reacting with similar apprehension. Arlo's complexion when from red to green to grey like a broken traffic signal. "C'mon, lady," he said breathily. "Th-This is messed up."

I'm sure you've guessed by now that the envelopes contained the detail of their consignments. But this was not the reason for people's sudden fear. This was less a matter of proceedings and one of human decency. But Clarke didn't seem to hear, she was looking over an app on her phone.

"Davenport, Bastion. Hasu, Sakushi. If you'll both come forward please."

"I'm not doing this," Bastion stated, and Clarke motioned a guard in his direction. "Excuse me," she said, "I asked you to come forward."

Guards brought him forward, Sakushi scoffed as he came forward. Unlike Bastion, he didnâ€™t seem to care what any envelope had to say.

"Exchange," Clarke said simply, Bastion hesitated. â€œNow, please.â€

Sakushi's mouth curled as Bastion's muscles visibly contracted. They both had already interpreted that they were supposed to do. "You can go first, if you want to."

Bastion hadn't done much to make himself popular to anyone but Cygnus. Most of the others considered him to be a bit of a peacock; regal, fickle and condescending. Not to mention, he insisted on sleeping naked. Still, no one could help but feel bad for him.

"I wish that you had considered the impact that your choices would have on us," Bastion read measuredly. "We lost a lot thanks to your scamming. My father lost his job and we lost our house."

The Conman rolled his eyes. This was so hoary and manipulative that it was laughable. "My mother took her own life- Who even wrote this"

Clarke blinked. "One of Mr. Hasu's many victims. A young woman in West Burbank, I believe."

"I've never been to Burbank," Sakushi informed her. "My dealings are all international. Maybe I should go now?"

Bastion narrowed his eyes. "You know, you really don't want to do that."

"Ah, but I do!" Sakushi announced, grinning as he opened the letter. "Let's see..."

The other inmates shifted uncomfortably. Most of them understood Sakushi likely didn't mean any harm, but then again his manner of playful joking often resulted in him going too far. They could tell by his smile that he either didn't sense Bastion's anger mounting, or more likely, didn't care. Ari clasped her hands dramatically and but her lip, unaware that another was looking over her shoulder, her normally assured expression fading for favor of one of shock as she read her letter.

"Your choices have brought nothing but shame to your father and I," Sakushi read, taking on a tragic tone and biting his fingers dramatically. "You spent so long trying to spite us with your outright disregard to the values we tried to teach you, the love we offered you, that you failed to see how little you amounted to."

Certainly, we should not be too quick to judge the Conman. This dreck was indeed as cloyingly hoary as the forged nonsense Clarke had assigned him. I believe he thought all the letters were similarly fake. It was a shame that he was wrong.

"Do you have any idea," he continued, "what its like having one son gone and another turn into a demoralized little slu-"

People gasped as Bastion's fist connected immediately with Sakushi's throat, knocking him off his feet and sending the conman sprawling backwards. Clarke stood, and she got to the Sex Doll before any of the guards did, already fingering her broach. "You've made me do this," she said primly, pressing down on the inlaid jewel with narrowed eyes. "You've-"

Bastion seized her wrists with his hand just as the woman sent a shock his way. I don't know what all you know of electricity, but when one is being electrocuted, it is very unwise for one to touch them for risk of the shock transferring over. What Bastion did was rather clever as a means of revenge, because he and Clarke both shared his pain. In all other respects, however, it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done.

He and Clarke both howled in pain and fell to their knees. On the sidelines, Lauro cackled. When the woman finally managed to break free of the haze enough to remove her finger, I could smell death on the both of them. Neither Clarke nor Bastion could whether much more heartbreak than they already had in their lives; another second and both their hearts would have broken entirely.

The woman was the first to rise, shaking. "Y-Yo-You. Y-You littl-le m-monster, you..."

Truman smirked as he converged on the scene. "I think thats enough group therapy for now," he said, the inmates all clutching their own collars and looking on anxiously, angrily as they always did when one of them was shocked. Cygnus was the first to come forward to the Sex Doll's aide, only to be batted off. Sakushi raised up on his elbows, scowling.

"Lunch is served at noon before the challenge," Truman informed them. "I advise you all to be ready."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1019 Hours MST**

 **Abigail's Garden - Ephraim Ridge**

"There anything you want to talk about?"

Bastion lifted his head from the carnage before him. He'd amused himself for the past hour crushing a nest of bluebottles one by one that he'd found eating the root of some flowers he liked. Cygnus never simply stood somewhere; he had a habit of sitting in unconventional places or dangling by his arms from a tree branch or cliff face like some sort of nature deity. Today, he'd perched himself on one foot onto one of the jutting stalagmites, with arms extended to presumably maintain balance. Most of the time, Bastion found it charming. He didn't today.

"Not particularly," he said, flopping onto his back and shielding his face against the sun. "What, do you have something?"

Cygnus dismounted, his face apprehensive, and approached his accomplice. "You decked the Indian guy," he reminded him. Bastion shrugged against the grass. "He had it coming."

The Transplant chuckled. "Yeah, I guess he did." He laid his body on top of Bastion's, and smiling up at him. This time, Bastion had to smile back. "We don't usually fuck during the day, but-"

He lifted himself up to remove his shirt, but Cygnus pushed him back down. "I'm not here for that."

Bastion stopped for a minute, then looked at him quizzically. "Then why did you come here?"

He kept his eyes trained on a wayward wren fluttering over them. He sighs didn't notice the look that came over Cygnus' face. "I wanted to see if you were okay. I thought maybe you wanted to talk."

Bastion's bemused expression only deepened, and Cygnus felt his face heat up. "I... just meant that- um-"

"My mouth is only good for one thing," the Sex Doll informed him arrogantly, and Cygnus rolled over onto his back. Truthfully, Bastion wasn't much of a talker, even in the best of times. Still, it was more than obvious that something was greatly troubling his new companion, and he couldn't help but feel slighted that he refused to concede so, even to him.

"Yeah," he said slowly, unsure of how to respond. "Forget it. I was being stupid."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1214 Hours MST**

 **Garages, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

"Colonel."

McLean huffed as he raised himself up from his jeep's hood, staring at the boy in front of him. The amputee again, looking at him expectantly. "Think I could talk to you?"

The old man sighed, and motioned to the tools at his side in what he assumed to be an obvious relent, but Miles only looked at hm with confusion. "I… really?" the boy asked, and McLean motioned again offhandedly.

"Really," he responded. Miles blinked as he chose a wrench from the table, feeling utterly out of place, and set to work on the half of the engine McLean hadn't touched. The Colonel looked halfway impressed as he looked on, wiping his hands off on a nearby rag. "So Jackson taught his boy what he knew about cars," he asked, sounding bemused. He'd expected the boy to utterly mess everything up, or at least move far slower with his plastic arm, but he seemed to be doing aright. Miles pressed his lips together at McLean's insinuation. He father hadn't thought him about cars.

"I'm actually self-taught," he settled. It was a miracle at all that he knew what he was doing, tightening things that looked as though they needed to be, racking his memory for tidbits he'd picked up from his years of leafing through auto magazines he dad subscribed to.

"Self-taught?"

Miles nodded. Back home, he'd been leery of riding in cars since the accident all those years ago, which translated to his father as a fear of automobiles in general, something he didn't particularly believe he had. That had been his thing with his parents: he'd never doubted the purity of their intentions, but they seemed to see him as far weaker than he was. "I hung out in garages a lot," Miles said, straightening. "Most of my friends at school were in the auto club."

"Auto club," McLean repeated. "Well, it'll be good to have a trade, if you ever get out of here."

Miles said nothing as he set the tool down. He hadn't given much thought to his future after high school, though the way the Colonel said 'if' made him nervous. Indeed, it sapped any pride he might've had when McLean turned on the ignition and the engine purred to life. He shook his head; even if he didn't have a future after this place, he didn't deserve to suffer in the present.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," he pressed, as McLean exited his vehicle. "I'm not asking for leniency, or help getting out," he said quickly when the Colonel's chin lifted reproachfully. "I'm only asking you for an opportunity. I want to show you that you can trust me."

McLean stopped, staring directly into the boy's eyes, his father's eyes, and they stared right back. Throughout his years of service McLean had prided himself on his ability to sense the truth about someone's intentions by looking into their eyes, and in Miles' he saw no duplicity, no defiance. He saw only a deep, repressed sadness and burning within, an earnest desire for his own justice. He truly believed himself innocent, and desperately wished to convey that. Had circumstances been different, perhaps it would've broken the old man's resolve.

But the situation, of course, was too paramount to be taken in by valor, and the Colonel shook his head. "Dismissed, son, go an get ready for the challenge," he said, turning away. He sounded unleavened, flat, and genuinely regretful, and Miles pressed, "Sir-"

"I said, dismissed."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1244 Hours MST**

 **Amphitheater, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Lunch was as tense and as silent as ever.

Ana sighed as she picked at the unidentifiable bits of meat mixed in with her rice. It was meant to be pork, likely, but whatever it was actually made of it was a very poor replication. It was strange; usually the food they were given was terrible, but today they'd actually had a choice in entrees. McLean's chef had set out two tureens: the pork, beans and rice mixture she had chosen, or some semblance of rice pudding. Further, there had been a dish of passable apples laid out as well, which looked to her and the others like ambrosia after two days of slop. Ana had wanted to save he little treat until the end of her meal, but she was hungry and - after most of the people in her proximity had finished theirs' off - she was somewhat nervous that somebody would steal it.

As she bit into it and set her plate aside, she looked out at the others. They still scattered, still looked to be a heartbreaking mix of alert and dejected as they guarded their horrible food. The behemoth, Arlo, looked like an animal that had been caged for too long, and was sprawled melancholically out over the turf with his food untouched, only reaching up to periodically discourage flies from landing on the festering wound on his neck. His closeness to her revealed the now-encompassing nature of his wound; it had spread around the entirety of his neck now and was beginning to turn from pink to red, and from red to black in some places, as it festered. She wondered with a twinge of fear how much longer it might take for it to for the thing to kill him.

"Are you okay," someone asked her as she approached, and Ana breathed with slight exasperation. It was the girl who'd defended her from the analytic one, and gotten them both zapped for it. Despite her seemingly constantly getting lumped in with her, Ana didn't particularly care for this girl. She considered her rather saccharine; in a place like this she didn't really have either the time or patience for melodrama. She had to stop herself from scowling at the dewy smile the girl gave her.

"I'm alright," Ana told her, and then returned to her apple. "Thank you."

Arielle nodded. "The people here are dicks, aren't they?"

"We're in a prison," Ana reminded her, chewing deftly. Arielle sighed again. "I heard about what Dante said to you this morning. I just wanted you to know that I don't think it was okay for him to say that."

It was Ana's great misfortune that Cissi had passed her as Arielle spoke. The Soubrette pulled her scowl from her food and sent it the girls's direction, and Ana clenched her teeth. She was damn tired of everyone, everyone, thinking she was weak. And further, she knew there was no one who would openly tell the girl about her earlier exchange. There was only one way that the Disavower could've known.

"You need to stop sticking your sniveling nose where it doesn't belong," Ana informed her curtly, not noting that two others nearby were listening in. "I'm not a little girl, and I don't appreciate being treated like one."

"You don't have to be like these people," Ari insisted. "There's nothing weak about not being so guarded."

Ana shook her head. "You don't know me. And unless you want to get decked like that Hindi, you'll stop acting like you do."

With that, the People Pleaser stood, taking her plate and stalking off. Ari's hands gave a noticeable twitch before hastily popping another pill in her mouth, and staring after the girl.

Scorned, certainly, but she was by no means defeated.

Arielle, you see, had a cloying drive to help others, eve those who insisted that they didn't needed it. Certainly, of all my broken clouds, her intentions were the purest. In Ephraim, though, good intentions matter little, and they are usually blown away by the harshness of the desert.

Historically, the few that linger often become dangerous.

As she passed, Sakushi and Savannah looked at each other. Sakushi's cheekbone had purpled and swollen, and Savannah found it difficult to avoid teasing him for it. "She's a feisty one under it all," Savannah said, grinning. "Who would've guessed?"

Sakushi scoffed. "I'm not impressed. She's still just a little girl," he called after her, earning himself a glare from Savannah. "Until she proves otherwise," said the conman, with a shrug.

Savannah huffed, keeping her voice low. "You said we needed at least half the inmates to pull this off. We can't exactly afford to be picky, here."

"We can, and we will," Sakushi insisted. "Have you scoped anyone else out on your side?"

Savannah rolled her eyes, but nodded anyway. "Arlo, Cissi, and Marley all ave some promise. I can guarantee you that Arlo wants out just as badly as we do."

"Yeah," Sakushi affirmed, "but what about his neck. We can't afford any hold-ups. What about that French girl?"

Both inmates lowered their voices, and Savannah craned her neck, looking for eavesdroppers, before shaking her head, shuddering at the memories that she'd read over her shoulder earlier. "She's clever enough," Savannah said, "but we'd be better off with someone else. That girl is batshit insane.

Arielle gave a saccharine sigh, looking up to the sky dramatically, and Sakushi rolled his eyes. "She doesn't look that scary. Besides, we'd probably only use her for a bit before we offed her."

As much as Savannah hated the idea of shedding blood for this escape, Ari perturbed her more. "Believe me, she's batshit insane," she persisted. "Especially if that letter-"

Sakushi's expression conveyed his annoyance at the mention, and Savanah bit back a scathing comment. There wasn't any point in riling him up right now.

"What about you," Savannah asked him, changing the subject, and he considered a moment before answering. "How about that Carmen girl? We need someone good at thinking, and Dante's got that creative thing going for him, and that dirty Hawaiian might be good for camouflage-"

"Yeah, but I doubt he'll go anywhere without-," Savannah stopped herself at how Sakushi's face purples further. "Forget it. Let's focus on Carmen for now."

Sakushi nodded again just as Truman took the stage, signaling for everyone to stand at attention as they always did when McLean entered. He didn't pull up as he usually did today; instead, he simply came up from behind the stage. He was dressed today in his fatigues, brandishing what looked to be a paintball gun. Caroline noticed how Lauro, at her side, sneered at them, his fingers twitching in anticipation, and then the Colonel surprised everyone.

"Today," he said, "rather than employ fear tactics, we hope that you will take this opportunity to show us that we can trust you. The last two challenges have not well represented Ephraim Ridge, or your process of reformation. There is no doubt in my mind that many among you, deservedly so, believe that this institution is not dedicated to your recovery as young citizens. Perhaps you feel as though all we want to do, or are equipped to do, is to punish as severely as we physically can."

Bastion folded his arms. "You showed us that."

"What you have seen, is the worst that I could possibly show," the Colonel explained. "You have all seen what happens should you make it necessary of us to punish you. Your first steps to moving forward lie in recognition of your past crimes. Today, we will focus mainly on the effects that your misdeeds have had on others, specifically those close to you. For that reason, I have asked the people closest to you, the ones who cared enough to bring you here, to write you those letters. As was attempted to be demonstrated, reading these out loud would be, I assume, a very unpleasant experience for some of you. For that reason, you'll want to listen up to the following instructions."

There was an immediate shuffle in the crowd as the inmates moved to further obscure their messages from home.

"Those of you who may have tried to destroy them already know this, but that paper has been laminated with a very fine synthetic resin. For all intents and purposes, they are invincible, though you all are not. At the end of the challenge today, however, I will check those letters for an paint residue and, if I find any, whoever the letter belongs to will read it out loud at dinner under threat of immediate electrocution."

Everyone's mouths went dry in fear. "What does that even prove?" Caroline asked. It didn't seem much like he trusted them when the collars were still involved.

"That should be made clear today. I would hope you'd all be smart enough to figure it out. Further, you will not be supervised in today's challenge."

The inmates all stared, sure they had misheard, but McLean, amidst all the sternness he wore etched into his face, looked entirely earnest. You have the opportunity today to prove that you can be trusted unsupervised, with weapons, and that you will both return to our designated meeting point at the end of the challenge, and that you exercise the use of force with discretion."

More confused stares, which the Colonel drunk in like brandy. He gestured to a decrepit-looking excuse for a prison bus that was being driven up from the garages, sputtering brown smog from the exhaust and looking as though, once it stopped, it may never move again. The doors creaked open with a metallic-sounding screech, like the screams of the damned spilling out of the gates of Hell, and the inmates flinched collectively. McLean gestured to the doors.

"Get on."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1239 Hours MST**

 **Garages, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Truman cursed under his breath as his cart sputtered and died underneath him as he pulled to a stop. The piece of shit wasn't worth the constant trouble; he wished McLean would just let them toss it. It didn't do anything that a newer model couldn't do better; and it wasn't as though a replacement couldn't be afforded. Still, it was pointless to argue the point. He knew the real reason McLean held onto this thing so tightly.

 _Most people did._

As he abandoned the vehicle, a handful of guards approached them, many of them already shaking their heads. "He's just not here," one of them said offhandedly, and few of them nodded assent. "His stuff is all gone too."

Not for the first time since the institution's establishment did a cold apprehension curl Truman's shoulders. Abandonment wasn't exactly the end of the world, some people simply weren't up for the task, but neither Fenton nor Walters had seemed like a deserter. He couldn't help but wonder if there was more to this than either boy just coping out. "Alright," he relented. There wasn't any time to pursue his theory, no point in dragging it out. "Call off the search for now. You and you," he clicked his fingers at two of the guards, "go set up for tonight. The rest of you, back to your stations."

The small group dispersed slowly, and Truman leaned back in the seat of the jeep, staring into the white blaze of the sun through the tint of his sunglasses and wondering. When Madeline Clarke approached him, her cardigan abandoned and her cheeks flushed from the heat, he'd almost fallen asleep.

She cleared her throat irritably. "Any luck?"

"Nope," Truman replied blandly. "Looks like we've had our first runaway."

Madeline pursed her lips. "That isn't good, Truman," she told him pointedly. It was strange how this woman changed when she was away from the inmates. "This place needs to get a good score on the evaluation to stay open, and I don't think I need to remind you that 'Employee Aptitude' is a section on the form?"

Truman chuckled. "I'm not worried," he told her truthfully, and Clarke's cheeks reddened further in indignation. "Besides," he continued. "You need this place to stay open just as much as we do."

"I am an employee of the state of Arizona," Clarke retorted, too quickly. "I'll do my duty to the law before I do to you and Colonel McLean."

"That," Truman stated, "is bullshit, and you know it. You are here for the same reason we all are."

Clarke closed her mouth, seeing herself beaten. "So," she folded her arms, "have any of the inmates seen anything yet? Or… anyone?"

Truman shrugged. "If they have, they haven't mentioned it."

"And McLean?"

"What about him?"

Clarke sighed impatiently. "You know what. Has he found what he's looking for? With... the lake?"

Once again, Truman looked up helplessly, staring into the sun.

"I don't know."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1300 Hours MST**

 **The Rim, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

"In 1942, during the height of the Second World War, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which instructed the United States military to clear areas for interment camps for Japanese Americans and other individuals seen as threats to national security. California was one of the most evacuated areas in the country, due in large part to the large percentile of the population being of Japanese parentage. Ephraim Ridge and a few other locations were all considered, and then cleared for space in case of overflow, but this location was ultimately abandoned by the government after the locals promised death to anyone who trespassed."

Only a handful of the inmates were actually listening to the guard. Even McLean, who was more concerned with the conversation he and Clarke had been having earlier, wished he would shut up. This guard was one of the older ones, to gentle to guard a prison in his opinion, more interested to educating the little shits than correcting them like they were being paid to do. He kept his eyes trained forward on the worn old road, contemplating tossing the old man out.

"Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Dr. Cathy Marie Noakes, a civics professor at ASU, and a band of her students and colleagues started the American Vigilance Society, and they created their own internment camp on the cleared portion of Ephraim Ridge under the guise of a haven for Japanese youth who's families feared governmental retribution. They promised to safeguard the children until the war had ended. They went by the name, the Quaker Society for Pacific Refugees.

Once the children got here, it was basically like a precursor to Abu Ghraib. They subjected them to the cruelest humiliations, the most godless conditions. Many of them were worked to death in the quarries; where they mined coal and lapis lazuli. The one you'll be seeing today is the oldest one. They called it the Pit. It's said that this place became Noakes' final resting place after the '42 Riot."

Miles, seated upfront and listening with vague interest, piped up, "So there's others?"

The guard shook his head. "Not anymore. This place used to be full of quarries made by dynamite, but almost all of them have caved in now thanks to erosion. The Pit, I think, survived because it was was the only natural one. It used to be an underground cave system the redskins used to hide from settlers, the others were made after the Pit dried up."

In the seat next to Miles, Arlo slumped listlessly against the window, his eyes bloodshot and his skin flushed with what he was sure was fire. The intense itching in his neck had long since given way to a tingling, chaffing numbness. Lauro's nose wrinkled at the smell of decay as he approached him.

"So, your neck feeling any better?"

Arlo said groggily, "Is yours?"

The Role-Player felt his neck gently beneath his collar. Maybe he had thicker skin than his counterpart, or maybe his was simply not healthy enough to attack his own wounds in the way Arlo's had. "Kinda…" he said truthfully, and then amended at the way Arlo glowered at him. "Not really."

"I think somethings wrong with me," Arlo stated, gently palming his forehead. "Like, really wrong."

Lauro was about to say something when McLean clicked his tongue from a few seats up.

"Pitiful…"

At Arlo's side, Marley narrowed her eyes and send the Colonel's turned back an obscene gesture. It would've been a prime way of getting into the larger boy's graces to join her in her mocking, if Lauro were brave or foolhardy enough to do so. Instead, he simply pulled his face into a proud expression and slunk slowly back to his seat a few rows back, where the smartass girl who never changed her expression - Carmen, he though her name was - was already waiting to chide him.

"You're really obvious," she said bluntly. "That you're using him. Even the mute sees it."

There wasn't any point to denying it, so Lauro merely shrugged. "He doesn't, and that's what matters," Lauro said. " I need muscle for the merge. Its either him, the gays, or the blind guy. I prefer my chances with him."

In actuality, Lauro was starting to have doubts that the big guy would even last to the merge if there was to be one, or that he'd been in any position to serve as an intimidator if he did. But Lauro Aihara very rarely spoke with any sort of sincerity. Even for a criminal, he avoided honesty like the plague.

Seated next to Carmen, running her thumb absentmindedly over her tattoo and - though she'd never admit it - replaying her earlier conversation with Cissi in her head, Caroline returned to reality enough to send Lauro a withered look of disapproval, which only seemed to add to his smugness.

"What about you?"

She smirked. "Just trying to think of what boy band your hair reminds me of."

For what seemed like the first time since their arrival, Carmen's face shifted into what was unmistakably a repressed smile, and she quickly ducked away to hide it. Lauro lofted a brow at her, honing in on her wrist and noting the dragonfly. "Cute tattoo," he quipped, gesturing to the date underneath. "That the day someone popped your cherry?"

"Nah," Caroline replied absently, through her eyes flashed dangerously. "When did you pop yours?"

Carmen snorted. She did usually go for verbal fisticuffs in the best of times, but batting off smarmy boys was a pastime not even schizophrenia could rob her of her enjoyment of. "Please," she added cheekily. "Like his pussy isn't drier than the lake yesterday."

Caroline snorted, and Lauro pressed his mouth into an irritated line. "Funny."

"I know."

The Role-Player smirked. That was the thing with people like them, he contemplated. In his own way, this had been his attempt at conversation that, it appeared, the girls had both picked up on. Who said criminals couldn't be a fun bunch.

He was about to toss back an equally scathing remark when the bus skidded to a stop, and McLean stood. "First things first," he stated. "Last victor gets to trade a member for one of the losing team. Coleman, pick your barter."

Faye, at the back of the bus, leaned over and tapped Lana on the shoulder, who eyed him warily in response. "Can… uh…" Faye started, clearing his throat. "Can we talk out there?"

Lana bit her lip. "I guess so," she said, feigning nonchalance. "Maybe- What?"

She turned back around irritably to Cissi, who'd just tapped her on the shoulder. The Soubrette cocked her head at Arielle, who was asleep soundly beside her. She winked, and then clapped in the girl's ear, waking her with a start.

"You've been traded," she told her, standing and jerking her thumb at Julia's team, who was dismounting. "Let's go."

Lana sighed at the girl's antics and then looked at Faye. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

Guards flanked the inmates as they walked out of the bus. As if they didn't need some other parallel to prison. McLean was there when they got out, his aviators displaying clearly the cracks in their respective emotionless personas. As time passed it was becoming harder and harder to keep up, harder to mask their fears about this man, and even Todd could see that he was noticing it. It wasn't hard to see where Chris' sadism came from.

"Here's how this is going to go. The grounds to the east side of the Pit are for Coleman's team. Brown's, you have the west side. Like I said, the first team to blast the opposing team's flag wins. If it isn't done by sundown, we start zapping people. All but two members each get a paintball gun. You'll notice that your collars have clicked on the communication feature, use as those to talk to each other."

The inmates all nodded, some looking more interested than others, as guards distributed their weapons. "Paintballs," Dante said slowly, flicking his red hair. "I would've expected something a bit more dangerous from you," he continued. "Unless these explode or something."

At his insinuation, McLean held up one hand before the last gun could be distributed. "These are special," he informed him curtly, assuming a firing stance. Dante smirked and broadened his stance, seemingly entirely unfazed about being shot at point-blank range. "I've been shot at before man," he informed him. "Your goons used rubber bullets at the protests over this place."

Carmen raised her head from her gun. She/s forgotten Dante was there, that she's actually seen him and a few other young men attempting to scale the barbed wire fence. They had only gotten so far before there indeed had been a rain of rubber bullets, and then the tear gas rolled out.

The tear gas.

Carmen lifted the holster of her gun to her nose and took a light sniff, and even the faintest of vapors was enough to make her eyes burn as though someone had shown acid in her face. She gasped, recoiled, before choking the beginnings of a warning to the Artist that went unheard.

Dante gaped as the paintball made contact with his chest, splattering his shirt in dark fluid that instantly began eating through it with a sizzling sound. The Artist yelped, striking at his torso where some of it made contact with his flesh, scrambling on the ground for sand to scrape it off with. The inmates all resisted the urge to toss their weapons away in fear.

"That's fucked up, man!" Dante shouted, fearful to touch the angry, red blisters springing up over his skin and cringing at the pain they left, like fire smoldering away nerve endings. "That is fucked up!"

McLean cocked the gun. "Pure liquid phenacyl chloride," he said proudly. "The same shit they make into tear gas, tempered with anticoagulants."

He suppressed a wolfish laugh as the boy moaned in pain, his glare deepening.

"Dangerous enough for you?"

Julia closed her eyes and opened them slowly. "Where are our flags?"

In response, McLean pointed at Marley and Caroline with his weapon, causing them both to flinch. "Right there," he said, looking at Julia. "Your team guards the mute. The inked-up kid's team guards the other girl. Today, you little princesses are going to see a war zone."

Julia shook her head, "And if we refuse?"

McLean cocked his gun again.

A ways away, Savannah covered her mouth, looking on. Sakushi, however, now standing with her team, kept his eyes on Ana.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1313 Hours MST**

 **One of the Caves, West of the Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

"Stop. This'll work." Cygnus said, running his hands over the wall of the cave they'd found and smiling when it came back the color of the clay around them. Immediately, he set about mixing in the residue in a pool of runoff water. "Everyone strip down and get comfortable, this'll take a while."

Dante, Sakushi, Savannah, and Bastion all did as he said. "Here's how this goes. You two, take these and guard the girl," he tossed two of the guns to Carmen and Lauro, who nodded, the both of them looking slightly off-put at the sight of Dante's chest, which now reminded everyone of charcoal; cracked and flaking, with angry patches of red showing through in places. Both Faye and Lana tried to avoid staring when he looked at them, "You two, scout out the field, try not to get your dicks blown off."

He addressed the others, now in their underwear. "You four, with me."

They all nodded in assent, cocking weapons that everyone was secretly hopeful that they wouldn't have to use. Ana's who'd been watching Cygnus smear water all over the cave walls to avoid watching the others strip, offered up? "What do you want me to do?

Dante took a minute to respond, and Ana didn't need to be looking at him to know he was biting his lip contemplatively, looking to his teammates for suggestions. "You can stay here with me," Caroline said eventually. "Guard the entrance of the cave."

Ana lofted a brow. "Wouldn't I need a gun for that?"

Caroline looked to Dante, who shrugged. There weren't any left.

"It's nothing personal, we just don't need anyone else out there," Bastion told her, his tone indicating only subtly that he was lying. "If the hunting party is too cumbersome, we'll get slowed down."

Savannah nodded. "Plus, we'll have a better chance of getting in and out with minimal gunfire if we keep the group small."

"What if they outnumber you?" Ana said suddenly, catching their attention. "I know it doesn't seem like much when so many of them re injured, but theres strength in numbers. They've probably flocked together because of that. What if you get to them, and then they're all there, all nine of them, with guns pointing at you. Not only is our plan foiled, but you're all reading your letters tonight in front of everyone. I don't think you want that."

None of the inmates had a response prepared. Only Sakushi seemed to react at all; he gave her a considering look, and then relented. "Makes sense."

Everyone, including Ana, looked at him as though he were a stranger. "Okay, so we fan out to different sides, and when we they give the signal, we all converge. We take out the mute's guards and then we grab her and toss her in once she's defenseless."

The others continued to stare, Savannah shook her head. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Sakushi winked at her as a response, which she sighed at, knowing it would be pointless to press the point.

"Tell you what, send her with us," Faye advised. "If all else fails, we have a canary for the coal mine."

Sakushi shook his head. "Nah, she can come with us. She can use my gun."

Ana couldn't believe her ears; emphasis on couldn't. Sakushi's silver tongue did well at swaying others, but she didn't have to like or be liked by this boy to know that he was nothing without an ulterior motive. Nothing.

"Whatever," Dante conceded, taking Sakushi's gun and thrusting it at the People Pleaser. "You get one chance. Don't fuck it up. Aye, mudmask, you ready yet? Mudmask?

The entire team looked at where it seemed Cygnus had vanished into thin air, confused, until Bastion laughed slightly, clapping. "Brilliant."

The clay on the wall shifted, and then it smiled. Cygnus grinned, his entire body camouflaged perfectly. "Yep. Who's first?"

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1322 Hours MST**

 **The Outcrop, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

Miles was annoyed for two reasons, the first of which being the direction his teammates had chosen, and the second one that, despite their assurances otherwise, it was his fault. He sighed, nodding along with Julia's outline, and trying not to catch her eye as she shared disconcerted glances with the other members.

Truthfully, the Amputee had known that he had gotten off easy. Though Julia, whom he and the others often left alone for her stoicism, wasn't particularly as aggressive a leader as Dante, she would've been within her rights to abandon him and the other two boys who'd turned into dead weight to be picked off by the other inmates that the other team had more-than-likely deployed already. After all, what did it matter to them, truly, if he, Todd, and Arlo were made to reveal their secrets, if he were forced to acknowledge the lie of his conviction as true?

"So, its agreed?" Julia asked, entirely rhetorically, and her team nodded subtly. Arielle looked especially dejected, as though she'd been placed in real danger for the first time. "Okay. Faye. Lana and I will go after Caroline. The rest of you, guard Marley."

Surrounded by her teammates, Marley looked equally as annoyed as Miles did at her situation. She hated being treated so helplessly, as though she couldn't easily guard herself from potential attackers while everyone else focused on actually winning the challenge rather than surviving it. She sighed, wishing for something to come by that she could use for target practice.

It should be obvious by now, but if it is not, Julia's team had little morale at this point. McLean had all but crippled Todd and Arlo, and while none of them particularly liked Sakushi, losing him only hurt their chances of winning further. The girl they'd been given as compensation sighed again, and Julia gave her a withering glance. "Believe me, we're not happy that you're here either."

Ari shook her head. "It isn't that. I'm worried for that poor Ana girl. Dante and the others can be a bit rough, you see-"

Miles rolled his eyes. "Take my advice: you live longer when you keep your nose out of other people's shit."

Ari gave his her best stink-eye, but said nothing else. Faye and Lana stood, and Cissi addressed the curtly, "You two clear on the plan?"

"Keep an eye out for the other team, transmit what we see," Lana parroted. "Easy."

Julia's eyes followed them as they left. "I'm going for Caroline. The rest of you, shoot anything that moves."

"Roger," Miles said listlessly, shooting up at a nearby outcrop and watching the paint sizzle acridly in the heat. They should've set up base up there; would've been way quicker to pick off anyone who came close.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1344 Hours MST**

 **Overhang, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

Faye grunted as he raised himself up onto the cliffside, having followed Lana in an effort to get a bird's-eye view. Lana had agreed to keep an eye out when she'd wrestled the truth out of him about his fear of heights. She had already taken a cross-legged position on the side. "Are we going to talk about what you told me?"

"I'd really rather not," Faye replied, sighing and stretching. He'd always hated climbing. Lana sneered at him.

"Look, I didn't mean to jar you that badly," he started to say, apologetically. "I only wanted to show you that I'm not someone you need to waste time trusting."

His mind should've been focused on the task at hand, or the challenge, but all he could think of this morning; if maybe he could see the coyote padding across the distance here too. Logically, he knew that wouldn't be the case; they were far from the Landing, and anyway they were way higher up than he had been in the morning. His stomach couldn't take it, and that was if he didn't pass out.

Then again, maybe he was just trying to avoid thinking about the letter in his pocket, or his mother's body lying splayed out in a bloodied heap on the pavement. The funeral. The police station. The courtroom.

"I'm just as fucked up as everyone else here, and I just wanted to be left alone. And honestly, I still want that. I… just wanted to clear the air, I guess."

Lana shrugged. "I was only trying to help."

"This is real life, Lana," he whispered through a horrible thickness in his throat. "I did what I had to, and that makes me a monster. I'm not someone you can help."

"That's so fucking stu-" Lana started, and then she smiled, oblivious to Faye's turmoil. "Hello."

"Wha- Oh…"

Movement.

Her fingers had already floated to the button her collar. "Julia. We have visual."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1429 Hours MST**

 **The Rock, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

"Look alive," Cissi hissed at Arlo as the young man keened again and slid down the rock he was leaned against. Marley alone seemed to eye him with any sympathy, intermingled with an abject terror that, though they didn't acknowledge it, most of the caravan felt.

 _He looked as though he were getting paler, though his cheeks and his brow had pinked with an unmistakable heat rash, and the skin around his neck, all the way up to his chin, had turned somehow even redder. There were circles around his eyes so purple that his irises twinkled out like pale stars. He raised himself up again with difficulty. "Sorry", he ground out, and no one had it in them to chastise him further. Todd didn't seem to be faring much better; he'd taken to lying on his belly like a sniper, pointing his gun at anything that moved. And then his eyes began to flicker again, like lightning accumulating between clouds._

 _And suddenly, Todd seized again as though he'd taken a bullet to the side, and Cissi immediately feared he would start screaming. He shook, overcome with the suddenly-familiar feeling that his eyes had been set ablaze, and he jerked forward, clutching his face in silent agony. The interior of his head ignited as though lava were filling his cranium, building up like a powder-keg begging to burst within him._

 _"The hell is wrong with him?" Arlo asked, but his voice sounded twelve-thousand miles away. The sounds and faces surrounding him started dissolving in a whirl of dull color, moving faster and faster until - finally - he was no longer seated with his teammates behind the outcrop. He shook as he got to his feet._

 _Instantly, his vision returned once again, and it was as though he'd stepped back in time. His eyes darted from the white-paneled walls, the cathedral-style windows, the mahogany desk in the center, ringed by arching, matching bookshelves packed with dated-looking, leather-bound volumes. Todd exhaled. This time, he couldn't pass off his circumstances as a trick on McLean's part. Had he collapsed again? Was he dreaming? His feet guided him through the room, past the bookshelves, behind the desk. He squinted to make out the placard on the desk._

 _Cormier Mayfield_  
 _Schoolmaster_

 _"Undress."_

 _Todd whirled around to be greeted by two men standing in the doorway. He swallowed dryly at the one who had spoken; he was a thin man, tall, dark-headed and bespectacled. Bottle-green eyes glistened from behind his lenses, and his beard obscured any expression he might've worn. Todd could only assume he was the schoolmaster, Mayfield something or other. The man behind him, a bloated, bearded man with enormous white brows, meandered in behind him and helped himself to a seat._

 _"I…" Todd stammered, "Me?"_

 _"I will not ask you again," the man started again. "You will undress for the doctor this instant, and you will be silent about it."_

 _The Blind Bat's shoulders bristled. "What the fuck are you talking about?"_

 _"No... Please."_

 _Once more, Todd turned. Suddenly, there was a young girl standing, no older than fourteen, standing by the desk. Her arms were drawn tightly around the loose-fitting frock she wore._

 _She spoke in broken English, her voice thick with terror. "He is not doctor-"_

 _"I've another engagement, Mayfield," the old man sounded from across the room, checking an ostentatious-looking pocket watch. "If you can't make the sale now, I'll have to take my business elsewhere."_

 _The schoolmaster sighed impatiently. "Never mind, Mr. Kirkland, I'll undress h- argh!"_

 _Todd perceived something heavy - a desk ornament of some sort - fly from behind him and connect directly with the schoolmaster's shoulder. He would've smiled at the girl's defiance had the man not responded as most people do when confronted by a minority._

 _Snarling, he pulled a pistol from its holster. The girl only had a moment to conceptualize running for the door before the walls behind her were no longer red. It took Todd a moment to register that the scream that he heard was his own._

 _"Unacceptable."_

 _Todd watched as the old man stood, indignation etched into his weathered face. "Simply unacceptable behavior. And I'll say something else, I should say I expect to be justly compensated, Mayfield. That was a fine waste of good breeding just now. A fine waste."_

"Todd?"

 _The schoolmaster growled at the old man's retreating back, readying his pistol again._

"Todd!"

This time, Cissi's voice cut through the scenery, and his vision vanished once more. "Wake up, damn it!"

He recognized Cissi's scent and felt her hands grip the fabric of his shirt. He must've given some indication that he'd returned because she spat in urgency, "What the Hell was that?"

The Blind Bat opened his mouth and closed it again. He was just about to respond when another voice, this one more masculine, sounded. Dante.

"Here's one, three… five heads," the Artist gloated, brandishing his weapon. Arlo growled and raised up and . At Sakushi's side, Ana made a small, piping noise and moved to step back. Sakushi had just enough bloodlust rushing through his veins to hear her, and he smiled as he thrust his weapon at her.

Arlo made a sudden motion to his left and shot, barely missing Faye and Lana, but he wasn't quick enough to stop Savannah from returning the favor to both him and, in a barrage, all their guns. He looked to Arielle and Todd.

"You wanted to prove yourself," he smirked. "You take care of them, and I'll get the flag."

Ana gaped at him, "Wha-"

Bastion rolled his eyes. "He wants you to shoot them," he muttered, aiming his own weapon at the flock of inmates before them. Cygnus scoffed as the girl as she shrank away from the gun, and then again she yelped when Bastion fired. Todd crumpled like a paper doll as an electric-looking green exploded against his leg.

"Like that."

"You son of a bitch."

Dante laughed, triumph in his voice and Marley clamped under one arm. His entire squad stood by, weapons ready, the challenge all but theres. Cygnus was already hanging on Bastion's shoulders, peppering his cheek with celebratory kisses. Even Faye and Lana seemed to have forgotten their tension and leered at the two of them. "The fuck are you waiting for?"

Arielle looked at her former team, who looked back at her like a stranger, and then to Ana with tears in her eyes. "Go ahead," she whispered.

Ana's hands shook as she steadied herself. Todd and Cissi were still on the ground, writhing, and Miles-

A blinding pain erupted thrice in her arm, knocking the wind out of her and sending her sprawling to the side. Savannah hit the dirt when the same happened to Cygnus and Bastion, all three of the losing their weapons to the rain from above. Against a haze of what appeared to be an explosive rain from above, Sakushi and Savannah both looked up. Dante screamed to their side, his back erupting in boils.

"He's gunning us," she shouted, but Sakushi was already in battle mode. He crouched low, narrowed his eyes, as Miles readied his weapon again. The amputee had climbed to the top of the nearby outcrop, and his paintball gun was pointed directly at the conman. His smoldering glare went from him, to Ana, to the felled boys. Their weapons were all shot to shit, just like they were. Still on the ground, her body band still mercifully unscathed, Savannah mouthed at him.

'Draw his fire.'

Sakushi sent her an incredulous look, and she jerked her head to the side. Ana's gun sat untouched, maybe two feet away. The Rabble-Rouser repeated herself, 'Draw. His. Fire.'

The Conman leapt to his feet and darted left, right, and Miles began shooting again. Savannah ceased the gun, and Miles had just enough time to notice before Savannah took aim.

"Let's see," she gasped, smiling, "if I can't blow your other arm off."

She fired, as did Miles, and they both went down in a hailstorm of color, and Sakushi let out a ululating war-cry and seized the weapon, but when he rounded, Cissi caught him by surprise. She was smiling, tears brimming her eyes as a splatter of paint singed the back of her head, strands of dark hair melting onto seared skin with a hissing sound. He looked where she was looking, and then he rounded on Ana with fury burning in his gaze.

When Dante went down, Marley had hit the ground running.

The Conman breathed. "You didn't shoot them, little girl," he snarled, and then his trademark grin returned. "You know what? You're gonna be useful whether you want to be or not."

Ana, who'd curled up, gasping and clutching her arm where a paintball had seared her elbow, was only given a millisecond to react before Sakushi had her in his clutches.

He threw over his shoulder. "Guns. Now."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1532 Hours MST**

 **Near the Caves, the Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

Julia whirled around when the bang sounded, sending a nearby rodent scampering onto the turf to its demise. Her ears rang as she moved to approach it, and she moved back as though revulsed by some malignant force-field. She searched for the source, obviously the cliffside nearby, and she contemplated looking for shelter. A telltale splatter of bluebell paint glistened on a boulder; had someone shot at her specifically? Did they know she was here?

"Loitering again, I suppose?"

Julia turned again, this time to be greeted by what looked to be a black jellyfish consuming a large, underfed vulture. She had to stop herself from leaping back. "Mme. Osbourne."

The old lady was near- entirely obscured by a veil of black lace that flowed from overhead down the parasol she carried, and Julia had to wonder whether she was meant to be wearing a costume or something. Underneath she wore a deep-black mourning gown that cinched so dramatically in places it looked to have been affixed by straps. She looked as though she were some female incarnation of death, here for her soul. How she hadn't overheated, Julia couldn't guess, nor could she guess what she was doing wandering about the desert again. Osbourne looked at her expectantly, and Julia snapped back into focus.

"No, ma'am," she replied. "I'm actually looking-"

"As am I," the old woman interjected, giving a grandiose sniff of displeasure. "It's my girl again, you see."

Dementia, Julia surmised. It couldn't be anything else. She was about to suggest they both find some shade for her to sit in, and then she would go and flag down a guard for assistance, when the woman spoke again, her voice so assured and judgmental that Julia's heart almost broke for her. The threat of gunshot still hung over her, more prevalent than it had been previously; would the presence of a defenseless old lady deter an assailant?

"By the hogback, likely. Out bringing shame to her family name, going amongst the redskins as though she hasn't any raising. Her, and that layabout Havisham, I'm quite sure."

"Right," Julia said, reaching out to help her, only for the woman to retract from her outstretched hand. She looked from it to her from behind her parasol as though offended that Julia would attempt to touch her.

"You always look so emotional every time I see you," she informed her crisply. "It's most unbecoming; a girl your age, always looking to be on the cusp of blubbering over something. A lady shouldn't be so given to hysterics, colored or otherwise."

This was too far. Julia felt a blood vessel snap in her neck.

"Listen, you fucking crone, I don't know how shit worked in whatever coon-ass village you crawled out of, but there are things you can't call people any more. And that's one of them."

She expected the old woman to reach out from under her parasol and slap her, and then she would feel justified in kicking her ass like someone obviously needed to. Her mind flicked back to one Christmas pageant she was in as a child. She had played the Virgin Mary, and a mother as threatened to withdraw her son from the church because they allowed a black girl to depict the Madonna. Julia had been so furious at the time that she'd actually abandoned rehearsals and kicked the woman in the shins. Her father took her aside to discuss loving thy neighbors in the face of hate or some shit, but it had never sunk in.

 _I hadn't been there to see that, but I'm sure I would've enjoyed it. Bigots are about the foulest creatures that walk the planet; one of these days I think I'd like to make a bonfire of them all. I imagine it'll be a lovely occasion, my friends and I could roast marshmallows, maybe set off some fireworks. Nothing too noisy of course, because I'd prefer to hear their screams._

 _But, my fantasies aside, Mara Osbourne didn't consider herself a bigot. Contextually, she was a bit more progressive than some, though there's no accounting for ignorance. The point I'm attempting to make here is that her reaction was one that Julia did not expect._

A wiry, but nonetheless present, smile crossed Osbourne's features, as though she were actually impressed with Julia's sudden outburst. Julia's pulse was still racing, a glare etched in her face, and this only seemed to heighten her offender's opinion. "My daughter," she said crisply. "You sound just like her."

"Your daughter..." Julia started, suddenly remembering a name Bastion had mentioned, "was her name Abigail?"

Again Osbourne's expression shifted. Through the veil, Julia could see her eyes flicker in unmistakable fear before it was instantly replaced with her usual self-important sniff.

"Certainly not. I don't know anyone to go by that name." The old woman sounded entirely transparent, but Julia didn't care to press the point. "My daughter is named for my dear grandmother, God rest her soul. Have you taken my advice?"

At the subject change. Julia ran a hand through her dark hair, attempting to process the information being thrown at her through residual anger. "What advice," she asked flatly.

"The Livestock, of course," Osbourne replied. "They've taken up the most dreadful habit of panhandling passerby for charity. Stuff what my husband might say, this Gifford is going to the dogs. But then, it always does before the Festival of Stars."

"Are you going to tell me what that is," Julia deadpanned, her patience further declining. Her eyes darted around again, still expecting a raid.

"I suppose its somewhat sacrilegious of us to celebrate a pagan holiday," Osbourne mulled with consternation before bing a dismissive wave, "But its a rather nice occasion, and we've so little to celebrate in this dreadful place. The stars all fall, and the picnic is always nice for the children, though I never let Deliverance paint herself in those ghastly symbols the other children would. But now of course she's off and joined that Havisham's committee, wailing about the rights of the natives as though our good people don't have children to feed."

Julia said nothing, and it didn't seem like she needed to. Osbourne glided past her grandly, "I really must be off. And for your own sake, do not go near anyone named Abigail."

"So you do know her?"

Briefly, without turning, Osbourne chuckled darkly, her voice conveying the deepest bitterness Julia had ever heard as she replied, "I know everyone."

The Preacher's Daughter closed her eyes and sighed with annoyance. When she opened her eyes again, the woman had gone.

"Scuse' me?"

Julia leapt back, stifling a shriek.

"I'm sorry, is this yours?"

Now, suddenly, there was a man standing over her on a mottled-coated horse, broad-shouldered and smiling a earnest smile. He extended a crumpled envelope to her, her letter, though his expression conveyed that he hadn't read it. If he had, Julia thought, bitterly, he probably wouldn't have been so eager to return it.

"Y-yeah, it is... Well, I mean it's supposed to be, but..." Julia stammered against the blush forming in her cheeks, fumbling for words in the beam of his hazel eyes. "Never mind, Thank you. I must've dropped this."

The boy smiled as he handed it over. "No problem. I guessed someone must've. Lost it, I mean." He cleared his throw shyly and extended his hand. "I'm Adam."

"Julia Brown," she replied, taking it. "Where did you find it?"

He shrugged, patting his horse. "Buried in a scorpion mound that Tony here kicked over." The horse gave Julia an affectionate whinny and nudged her with its muzzle. "He's a bit of a charmer. Looks like he likes you."

Julia smiled slightly in spite of herself at the steed's advances, partly because she found it genuinely cute and, more so, because of the way Adam's eyes twinkled at the sight of her smile. She gave Tony a gentle scratch on the neck, the same way her mother taught her to do.

Her mother. The woman who, according her father, shared her laugh. The woman who baked her favorite cookies when things were bad and always laid out her uniform the night before so Julia could sleep in in the mornings. The woman who testified against her at her trial. Her hand lagged at the memories, and her laugh quickly died out when she remembered the reality of her situation, the letter in her free hand.

 _"I don't know who I'm holding when I hug you anymore."_

Adam seemed to notice how her mood fell and a look of unease crept over his features. "I uh..." he fumbled awkwardly, "I'm glad I found you, if you were looking for that thing..."

Julia hummed an acknowledgement, moving her hand to scratch Tony's shoulder. "Tony... that's a cute name," she told him and compliment seemed to perk Adam back up, the vigor returning to his smile. "I actually stole it from this banging new movie I saw last summer," he said, holding up his hands as though he were framing a marquee, _"The Shining."_

Julia nodded. "I've heard of that movie," she said mildly. She had never seen it, aside from the parodies of its more famous scenes, but she read a draft of the script once for a drama assignment. She wasn't sure how much of what she read remained in the final draft. "It's that old one, right? Based on the Stephen King book?"

Adam's smile faltered for a second time, this time into a look of vague confusion that Julia recognized, a look that boys tended to wear when they were hesitant to correct a girl they fancied. "Well, yeah," Adam conceded slowly, "but it isn't that old."

This stopped Julia for a moment, but she merely shrugged. "They must've remade it," she amended, and Adam cocked his head further. "My parents never liked scary movies. They were always kind of a no-go in my house, so I'm not exactly up-to-date."

The boy rolled his eyes readily, as though eager to change the subject. "I get it. My dad... well, he's a hard-ass too. My mother isn't much better. Really, if it weren't for Jace, my whole family would be-," Adam stopped. "You okay?"

Glassy tears had begun to pool in the corners of Julia's eyes, and she took her hand from Tony to wipe them away, assaulting her senses with the overwhelming smell of hay. Adam blinked. "Did I...?" he started. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend-"

"No," Julia said quickly. "It wasn't you, it's just... this place. And my family."

She hadn't expected him too, but Adam seemed to understand, and offered her a look of sympathy. "I get it," he muttered again. "Can we... uh, Tony and I, that is... can we give you a ride somewhere?"

Julia sniffed and forced a small smile. "I'd like that," she said. "But... now isn't a good time."

A blush crept into Adam's cheeks. "Right," he said, remounting Tony, and trying feebly to hide the embarrassed dejection in his voice. "I hope I didn't hold you up?"

"You didn't!" Julia assured him quickly, feeling somehow even worse for making him feel bad. "It was nice meeting you both, really."

Adam smiled at her and made a gesture resembling a tip of a cowboy's hat. "See you around, Julia Brown," he smirked, eliciting a genuine and highly-coveted grin from the girl as she waved them off.

And then, when a white-hot bullet of thick, acidic paste whistled and exploded against left ear, and everything short-circuited. A scream faltered and died in her throat as though strangled. They came to her through the electric haze of pain.

Seven figures, blackened as charcoal and emaciated as though something had sucked every drop of moisture from their bodies, huddled together like cinders in a fireplace. They crawled on the ground on all fours, dehydrated organs trailing from slits in body cavities, muttering nonsense languidly as they stumbled around in a haze of bleak confusion, trying to stand and letting out a garbled moan before collapsing back over. One of them turned to her, registered her presence after a moment of blank staring, and Julia watched through the gaping hole in its throats as its larynx spasmed and produced a horrible-sound bleat that tumbled passed its teeth alongside a spatter of viral, brown blood. The flesh on its cheeks barely supported the weight of its lolling jaw as it screamed at her.

The Preacher's Daughter backed away as feeling slowly leeched its way back into her legs. Maybe it was ordering an attack, or maybe it was attempting communication. It continued to point, to scream what she could only assume we're meant to be words.

She expected that to be it. She waited there, her eyes slammed shut, for them to converge upon her, and yet they never did. Indeed, when she opened her eyes again again, they seemed to be shrinking away from her. The one that had pointed at her had already struggled to its feet, tried to turn away itself, and Julia could see that its genitals had been purposely cut off.

These wretches weren't afraid of Julia. They were, for good reason, afraid of what had snuck up behind her.

Julia froze as she backed into something solid that blocked out the overhead sun. She squinted, seeing only a figure shadowed in the face atop a stallion. It seemed to notice her, huffing as it pushed past her, though its rider didn't seem to. She still couldn't make out his face, only the sheen of the sun as it glinted red in his hair. It looked like Adam, vaguely, but also not. He looked bigger, and far darker in its presence. His horse was as far from Tony as it could be, as well, a dark obsidian that slowly glazed an iridescent red color in the sunlight, as though it's cost was being consumed by fire. It's mane and tail was decked with dandelions. The rider loosed a booming, terrifying cackle as he approached them.

Then, she blinked, and then he was gone too, as was his horse and whatever it was that she had stumbled upon.

She turned and she ran. It suddenly made sense.

The way they'd been mangled, the way they moved on their hands and knees and how their groans sounded so much like the calls of a dying animal. The way they'd tried to flee from oncoming hoofbeats. The way they'd been castrated.

Those things, whatever they were and whatever they used to be, were what Madame Osbourne had been referring to when she said 'Livestock'.

The side of her face still consumed by fire, girl gave a whimper, and sank to the ground.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1544 Hours MST**

 **One of the Caves, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

Drip.

Caroline, like many others, had read Tom Sawyer in middle school for a quarterly assignment. It appeared on the final in the form of around five short-answer questions on symbolism, which she remembered only because she'd SparkNoted said topic and got four of them right.

Drip.

Sitting uncomfortably on the cave floor (she couldn't lean on the walls for their foul-smelling dampness and was thus forced to sit leaned forward, putting an unnecessary amount of strain on her lower back) and watching a stalactite above drip methodically onto the ground, all she could think of was Injun Joe in a similar situation, lying underneath the hanging stone and trying to stave off death by dehydration by catching the water in a stone cup.

Drip.

Jesus, this was fucking boring.

She sighed as she stood and drug herself to the mouth of the cave, suddenly desperate to remember that she wasn't trapped, prompting Carmen to cock her gun and follow her. "Did you hear something?" she asked her tonelessly, and Caroline pushed the girl's weapon down, smiling. "Just needed some air," she replied. She rather felt like cross between a princess and a kingpin, being guarded so heavily, and she was quickly finding she didn't particularly like it much either. The least one of them could do, she thought, was file her nails or something I they were going to treat her like such a commodity.

"I keep smelling smoke," Carmen complained, taking a rough sniff of the stale air. Caroline shrugged, keeping her eyes ahead and wondering. "Maybe they're trying to smoke us out," she suggested absently. "You think anyone has made a break for it yet?"

Carmen looked at her as though she'd just asked if there were unicorns out there, and Caroline looked at her defensively. "What, you honestly think someone isn't going to?"

"I don't think they could."

Rather than explain, Carmen narrowed her eyes at the expanse before her, bordered by a circle of jutting stones, upon one nearby was a desert shrew. She fired near it, missing purposely, and watched it scurry outside the border. It had maybe gotten five feet before it slowed, padded around as if disoriented, and collapsed, unmistakably dead. Caroline blinked, and turned to Carmen in shock. "What the fuck?"

"They brought us here for a reason," Carmen said. "This place used to be a testing ground for atomic bombs, remember? The guard said so earlier."

It was as though someone clicked on a light in Caroline's head, one that revealed a rotting corpse right before her eyes. Suddenly the heavy-looking clothing the guards wore, the tarps in the bus, their newfound freedom, all of it made sense. "The Pit's safe, I guess because they didn't blast here," Carmen continued. "But if anyone tried to run..."

What looked to be a vulture swooped down from above, approached the shrew, and then quickly resumed wing as though somehow aware. Caroline felt as though the world was suddenly spinning twice as fast. "They can't do this," she whispered, and then she it said louder. "They can't fucking do this!"

Carmen shrugged her shoulders as though the evil of it all simply rolled off her. "Technically, yes they can. Our families signed over custody, and there aren't my regulations for places like this. If that," she gestured to the shrew, "were to happen to us, and a family sued for it, the case would be dismissed for lack of standing."

"What the fuck is wrong with these people," Caroline asked, feeling a horrible mix of astonishment and fury burning her chest, stunting her lungs. "These are minors. No one here deserve something like that."

Carmen didn't reply. Her attention had been captured by Julia again, wandering around and looking like she was mumbling to herself. The Realist left her expression unchanged as she readied her gun again. Did Caroline have a point? Did anyone here deserve better than radiation poisoning? Logically, she knew that she probably didn't.

The Firecracker turned away when she pulled the trigger again. "Think of it like this," Carmen reasoned, as a paintball whistled through the air the Preacher's Daughter crumpled, "There's a concept in Native American mythology called anima, everything that exists exudes a metaphysical influence; even things that aren't alive. Everything has a soul to some extent."

Caroline nodded slowly. She'd never heard of anything to do with anima, but the concept sounded relatively simple. "Okay, so in some way, everything's alive."

"Right." Carmen nodded back, moving back into the cave as though Julia, still writhing in pain outside, were nothing more than an insect she'd just crushed with her shoe, unworthy of her attention. "So then let's say even cells in the human body are alive, even if they aren't, and since they're alive, they have a right to live."

"Okay," Caroline replied, biting her tongue as a horrible surge of bloodless nausea overtook her.

"If you got cancer, then," Carmen stated, "it would be immoral to seek treatment, because cancer is just a mass of cells. Killing them would be just as immoral as killing anything else."

Drip.

Suddenly Caroline's face went very dark, but Carmen didn't seem to notice. "Cancer kills other cells too, though. It can kill other systems, and then the person dies. Some things just don't have a place in this world."

"That's what I'm saying," Carmen said flatly, striding past her and reassuming her seat on the ground. "There aren't always humane solutions to problems. Sometimes, infected animals have to be culled, defective cells have to die, however you want to say it. Problems that can't be solved, must be removed."

"People aren't cancer," Caroline corrected her, her voice wavering, and Carmen fixed her with a funny look. "Some are. And you know that, don't you?"

"Hey, incoming message to the forum, you two are getting heavy as fuck," Lauro chimed from his place nearby. Both girls had assumed he'd simply fallen asleep: he'd curled up into a ball, breathing irregularly, near the wall. He'd abandoned his gun nearby, though one of the tubes had been taken out. Caroline had wondered briefly if he was over there crying earlier, though he certainly didn't seem like the type to succumb to something like that. If anything, Lauro had seemed more at east than anyone else she'd seen thus far. Now, she thought she had a vague inclination as to why.

She chucked, "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Lauro gave a self-important smirk and tossed what was in his hand at Caroline. It was one of the apples from earlier, but he hadn't taken a bite out of it yet. "420," he said mellowly. The fruit had been hollowed with the tube into a makeshift smoking pipe. The unmistakable smell of cannabis wafted up from the top. Both Lauro and Caroline burst out laughing, and even though Carmen shushed them, she did so with a smile. "Are you trying to get us killed," she asked the Roleplayer, who shrugged in response.

"They're already trying to kill us," he stated plainly. "Loosen your corset, hit this shit."

Carmen chuckled darkly. They were indeed about to die, more than likely. They may as well enjoy what little time they had left.

"Fine."

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1737 Hours MST**

 **Left Quadrant, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

Savannah hissed and pain and slapped her thigh, expecting to feel the blood of the insect that bit her pool unpleasantly against her leg. Instead, the burning continued, as though someone were pressing acid against her skin. Then it dawned on her, and her lips pursed.

"You two," she barked, chucking her gun at Cygnus and Bastion, looking miserably pained, who were seated nearby and for the first time that she'd seen, not making eyes at each other. "Watch them."

Bastion readied his weapon, nodding, as the girl slipped away. She moved swiftly as she could with her flesh surely burning along the weight in her pocket, though the pain evaporated when she pulled the source away as soon as she was out of eyesight. Her lazuli pendant. The girl shuffled it in her hand, let it dangle freely for a few seconds, and her brow furrowed in confusion. It was no longer hot or irritating to the touch, but every few seconds, it seemed to twitch slightly, like a pendulum, without any kinetic motivation to do so. She held it before her face, watching and willing it to somehow divulge its secrets. Why had it just burned her? To the best of Savannah's knowledge, lapis lazuli didn't conduct heat, and logically nor would the strap, but even if it could it had been protected from the sun in her pocket. And then, why would it swing when it had no inclination to do so? Even now, it seemed to be picking up momentum, swinging in a teardrop-shape that, if she didn't know any better, looked to be leading her down a nearby cavern.

She weighed her options; follow what was likely idiosyncratic movement into inky blackness, or return to keep watch in the heat. Neither seemed particularly pleasurable, but then again she hadn't had a decent adventure since her consignment, and with luck she wouldn't be here in a few days, so what was the trouble in a bit of exploring? When she was away, anywhere else, she might well regret having missed the opportunity.

A spoiler you've already seen: there would be regrets galore in Savannah's future regardless.

In the distance, she heard scuffling, followed by a snarl of "Stay down!" and a hail of paintballs. She cringed, her general distaste for needless violence more or less making her decision for her.

Her pendulum continued to pull her, almost like a dowsing rod, as she tried in her head to make sense of her circumstances. Lapis lazuli didn't follow magnetism any more than it did heat. It shouldn't be reacting to its surroundings in this way. She debated causes and effects in her head foggily, feeling as though led by a trusted friend rather than a necklace as it tugged her through a series of tunnels, not feeling any need to mark her way or turn back when her path seemed muddled. This was the most at ease she'd felt since she'd been at Ephraim, and the more caves she woven in and out of, the stronger her peaceful feeling became.

When it stopped moving in what looked to be a dead end, she was as certain of her way back as she would've been if she'd done nothing more than climb a flight of stairs. She looked around, wondering what was in here that she was meant to find. It looked to be some sort of dwelling that one might see recreated in a museum somewhere. Bits of shattered pottery littered the dusty floor, illuminated by pinpricks of light that filtered down from worn places in the expanse of darkness from above. Likely, this was a pitfall of some sort, one that someone had converted into a shelter.

It smelled stale and damp, despite the aridness of the caves that preceded it, and what looked to be pale-colored stones littered the floor alongside the pottery.

She stopped as it jerked suddenly toward what looked to be an envelope preserved between two rocks in the wall. It was yellowed and curling at the edges, and she wondered how long it could've possibly been there. She tugged at it gently, expecting it to come apart in her hands, but it didn't. It unsheathed itself smoothly, almost satisfyingly, like sword from its holster.

 _Savannah left her adventure with her treasure in tow. She would've read it there, had there been light to read by. There also hadn't been light to see that the aforementioned pale stones were bones. Human bones._

 _The contents of the letter will mean nothing to her. She will consider it a disappointment and save the envelope as a souvenir, but leave its contents in a crumpled ball to the desert's mercy and not mention it again. You may not care for it either, but you will once you learn its context. For that reason, I shall share it with you._

 _"My darling Deliverance,  
Forgive me. I was too late.  
-GH"_

 _An aside: the 'H' stands for Havisham._

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **1800 Hours MST**

 **The Caves, The Pit - Ephraim Ridge**

"So, you... uh... feel anything?"

"I feel everything right now..."

And for the first time since her arrival, or perhaps longer, Carmen laughed alongside Lauro. Caroline had to stifle hers, lest they be heard, which she found less difficult than it might've been under different circumstances. She almost wished they could be doing this that they could be doing this while hiding in someone's bedroom or behind the bleachers of a football field. Doing so in caves under the scrutiny of a prison camp made the whole experience far less enjoyable than it might've been. Someone had to keep their wits to them.

Lauro looked at her, his eyes maybe a shade or two lighter than the apple. "I packed a full bowl, are you not going to hit this?"

"Don't tell me you've never smoked before," Carmen slurred at her, absently braiding a lock of her hair.

Caroline shook her head. She had smoked before, almost every day for the first few months after the funeral before she graduated to harder drugs, but she was still hesitant. Partaking now seemed to her as though she was asking for it. She didn't ever want to run afoul of the guards ever again.

And anyway, what would her brother say?

"What do you think they're trying to teach us here?" she asked.

Carmen looked at her. "That we were wrong to do the things we did, I'm guessing."

"My life was perfect as a kid. My mom and dad were biologists, my brother and I were nerds a future... my entire life, people have told me that I had so much to be proud of."

Lauro nodded. "Pressure got to you?"

"Something like that."

Lauro nodded affirmatively. "My mother and father never married, and I never finished high school, so I guess my life was pretty unconventional. My home has always been on the stage, it's the only place where I ever really felt like myself. I think I'd like to be a character actor someday."

Carmen watched the scene before her, because that was what it was: a scene. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was her natural dissuasion from people, but something allowed her to see through the people before her. Truthfully, she knew little of Lauro, and of Caroline, but she still withheld her trust. She could see Lauro was indeed an actor; he delivered his story with such beautiful melancholy, like a some misunderstood teen-drama heartthrob, she had no choice but to doubt his performance. As for Caroline, she honestly couldn't peg her.

"What about you?"

There was no time for her to answer before the shooting began outside. Both she and Lauro sluggishly seized their guns. "Fucking shit," the Roleplayer began, as Faye and Lana entered their abode. Lana laughed slightly, "Smells good in here."

Neither Lauro nor Caroline had the reflexes to stop the barrage that felled them. With them down, the both of them turned their guns on Caroline, and Lana laughed again. "Nothing personal, sweetie," she said, backing the Firecracker against the back wall. "There's some secrets we just need kept, I'm afraid."

"Not more than we do," a voice whispered from behind them. She didn't have time to turn before her back ignited like a thousand fire-ants had bitten her. She yowled and toppled, and Faye fired a revenge shot at the figure in the entranceway.

Sakushi laughed and screamed in pain simultaneously, or at least appeared to do so, and both Caroline and Faye wondered briefly if he'd gone mad. It wasn't until he stepped into the cave that they saw what he'd done.

It was like some twisted homage to Frankenstein's monster; Sakushi had strapped two guns apiece to an arm, and smashed the others into a makeshift set of armor across his chest. His back was covered by something writhing in pain from where Faye's paintball had made contact; Sakushi had used it as a shield.

Ana.

"Holy fuck," Faye whispered, and that was the last thing he could say before he too went down. Sakushi, in his armor, cackled, and pointed to Caroline. "You. Come with me. This shithole isn't safe."

Another shot. This one, deafening. Caroline crumpled like a string puppet and Sakushi didn't even register until he'd already descended the cliff face.

Marley smirked a clear, sorry not sorry, and pulled the trigger and shot into the air, and those gathered around all looked up. Caroline yelped as electric-green ate into her shoulder. Lauro, still on the cave floor, immediately threw the apple against the wall, where it promptly splattered into ashy pulp. Marley didn't seem to notice; she simply stalked up to the girl, seized her by the hair and, with remarkable strength, drug her to the mouth of the cave and presented her to the people below.

The scene was, at the time, something I considered rather bloodthirsty in its entirety. It was, certainly, but it would pale in comparison which would happen in the events that would transpire because of what would happen next.

Sakushi gripped his guns furiously, his nostrils flaring so violently and erratically that it was a wonder they didn't bleed from the strain. He aimed them both upwards and fired indiscriminately, though neither of the guns produced anything. Ana fell limp from his back.

The Conman had never been beaten before. Not like this. He would've screamed. Would've done anything, had he had something to do it to. On the ground, the People Pleaser gave a minuscule grunt, trying to hoist her envenomed body to its feet. He aimed his foot at her collar.

Sakushi had no way of knowing what would happen if their shock collars were damaged in some way. To his defense, he believed that it would shield her throat from his wrath but, unfortunately, it did not. When he kicked her, the shock it produced was heinous, unyielding, and lasted a good thirty seconds before it shorted out in a plume of black smoke. The girl twitched feebly for a few moments, but only those in her immediate proximity seemed to notice.

McLean's arrival was preternaturally perfect, but those present immediately came enough to their sense enough to check their letters. Only Ana, who's entire body was splattered with colors as though a rainbow had mauled her, had anything to mar her's, though she was too exhausted and too pained to care about the paint on the corners. Ari bounded forward to her blackened comrade, helped her silently to her feet and expecting some reaction, any reaction, but she merely stared.

Savannah gently touched her pocket. It was as though it had suddenly gone hollow.

McLean looked to the girl on the ground, and then at Caroline. "Tell you what," he laughed. "The Mexican girl already got zapped. No one else has to read, but I get the final shot."

He lumbered over the Sakushi and pulled one of the guns from his feet, and the stench of his breath sent most of the other inmates stepping away from him. He was drunk, and Caroline only had a second to react before he'd fired. Marley jumped back, it was only the grip she maintained on her hair that kept her from tumbling over the lip of the cliffside.

Caroline staggered backwards on her knees, looking, for a moment, utterly scandalized. She locked her eyes with the old man, her mouth trembling as it hung open, her hand traveling to her abdomen where bright red paint emulated a gunshot wound. Those looking on might've mistaken it for a gunshot, for the paint, the way she was reacting to it. McLean even chortled slightly. "See," he joked callowly, "she's got the right idea."

But Caroline only continued to sit rigidly, unable apparently to formulate any sound. Slowly, the laughter petered out, and McLean's smile fell. "Hey," he barked up at them. "Hey. Hey, you good, girl?"

The Firecracker stood, took maybe one, two steps, before all the color drained from her face. Ari shrieked, pointing, and everyone followed her finger to the seam between the legs of Caroline's jeans as a dark-red dot grew in size until it enveloped the girl's legs. "S-she's bleeding," Carmen whispered.

"Jesus, fuck," the Colonel said, rushing forward as the girl fell from Marley's grip. In seconds, he was up at her side. "Fuck, you with me? Damn it, kid, can you hear me!?"

This was the most worked up, and the most loathed, the Colonel had been since his facility's advent. But believe it or not, this was not the first time he held a bleeding youth as others looked on in scornful terror.

"Lets get her to a medic," the Colonel rasped. "One of you help me load her in the jeep! Now, damn it!"

Arlo was the first to bound forward, his neck be damned, and Cygnus followed suit. Caroline made no indication of any sensation as she was hoisted and placed in the back of the Colonel's vehicle, her body strewn out horizontally. She could feel nothing at all but the organs in her body suddenly collapsing in on themselves. Had he punctured an artery? Blasted apart her liver, or pancreas, or something? Carmen, for the first time, had discernible fury visible in her stance. She looked as though she'd like nothing more than to slash the old man's throat, or force something corrosive down his throat. Lauro instinctively pulled her behind him, glowering himself, as the elderly guard from the bus drove the van drove off.

"Colonel," someone said from behind him, and the old man turned. Miles stood behind him, his collar in his hand, outstretched.

"This broke," he whispered. "Thought you'd want to know."

 _I looked on, as I always did. I could smell no death on the girl, and at the time, I considered it a blessing, because I didn't want to see her die. I didn't want to see any of them die._

 _Do you know how foolish I am at times? I assure you I can be outright idiotic when I've a mind to. Because there I was, silently thanking the heavens, mindless of the irony, that I was not to witness my first true casualty._

 _When, in a way, I indeed had._

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **2133 Hours MST**

 **Bathhouse, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Bastion sighed as the spray cascaded down onto his worn muscles, loosing himself in the steam of the shower. He leaned his forehead against the tiles, washing the day from his body, cleansing the tender skin around his neck, still blistered from before. He'd hoped the collar wouldn't shock him again; they were supposed to be waterproof, but he didn't want to take any chances. He didn't want to feel the pain that he'd let earlier ever again. His insides twisted as he cleaned himself, demanding food, which he couldn't give. He could only hope that he could weasel a scrap of breakfast from one of the girls in the morning.

"Today's been rough on you, hasn't it?"

The Sex Doll grinned as Cygnus entered, naked aside from all but his mud. For the first time, sweat from the day hadn't smeared it. The Islander turned to one of the sprays and turned it on, assuming a position Bastion had learned to interpret. Do anything you want, just don't look me in the face.

Bastion shrugged as he approached the boy, his hands aching to smooth across Cygnus' chest. "Nothing we can't fix."

Bastion's libido was left to fall, however, when Cygnus gently pushed his hands away, undoing the tie in back of his head and letting a plume of dreadlocks overtake his head, hiding his face as he turned to him. "I really think we should talk about it."

"Don't do that," Bastion whined, trying to capture Cygnus' lips with his own, settling for his cheek when he pulled away. From beneath the curtain of his bangs, the mud began to liquify and drip between their feet. "I told you, I'm fine. Right now, I'm just really, really horny."

Cygnus was near powerless to stop the magnetic pull of Bastion's touch most days, but he managed now.

"Do you know why I'm here?"

"Yeah, you told me last night. Now lemme at that dick before someone comes in, I'll bottom first."

Cygnus pulled away from him again. "Repeat it back to me."

This was enough to repel him slightly. Bastion backed away a few steps, tossed his head back and let the water flush the dirt from his hair. Cygnus looked at him expectantly, only fragments of his expression visible. The Sex Doll looked at him with sincere concern. "Someone might hear-"

"Bastion."

He sighed. "You sold drugs, and you killed a guy who had it coming."

Cygnus sighed as well, facing away as he mopped a lock away from his face. Bastion couldn't help but voice his concern again, "What, did you think I didn't remember or something? That I wasn't listening?"

No answer.

"I don't understand why you're trying to ruin what we have going here," Bastion said irritably. "I really don't, because I thought it was going really well."

Cygnus kept his face turned, saying softly, "I'm not trying to ruin anything-"

Bastion gave a humorless bark of laughter that cut him off immediately. "Yes you are," he snarled. "Look, we promised each other one thing and one thing only. You're supposed to be my reason to keep going while I'm here. You're supposed to be the reason I try to stay alive, and I'm supposed to be that for you."

The Transplant closed his eyes, breathing to keep his on temper in check. He remembered their arrangement well. He remembered the silence of his father as they flew in the helicopter he once dreamed to someday ride in as a boy, the way he was abandoned in that field and handed over to the driver, and the figure that had made a break for it when they opened the doors to throw him in. Cygnus had burst into tears when he realized what was about to happen to him. Bastion had long since cried himself out.

They had forgotten to lock the door before they were speeding down the highway. Cygnus had his hand on the door handle. Bastion made that promise out of necessity.

"I'm trying to be. This is all I know how to do."

Bastion growled. "You don't have to know how to do anything, Cygnus! All I need you to do is suck my dick when I ask for it! It isn't that fucking difficult!" Cygnus recoiled, and the Sex Doll's voice softened. "So what is it? Am I too rough? Are you not into it? Because if you aren't, its okay. We don't have to do this anymore if it means that I'm hurting you."

"I'm worried about you, man."

Bastion breathed a deep, steadying breath. He'd never had anyone worry about him before; he was quickly finding he didn't like it. When people worried, from what he understood, they started expecting you to be okay, and then they blamed themselves when they weren't. And Cygnus blamed himself for too much already. "All I'm looking for is sex. All I want is a distraction. I don't need you to be my therapist about it, or anything."

"There are other ways to feel," Cygnus said. "You don't have to close yourself off like this."

Bastion rested his forehead on Cygnus, closing his eyes, and inhaling his scent, just as he'd taught him to in the van. It was some cultural thing that native Hawaiians apparently did, something Bastion admired but didn't much understand. It always had a strange effect on Cygnus. It had this soothing effect on him, one Bastion enjoyed too because, in the few seconds they were connected, Cygnus' aura changed completely. He was, for lack of a better term, who Bastion assumed he was before his abduction, back when he still had a face.

"I can't feel like you do, Cygnus, " Bastion told him ruefully, pulling his own hair from his eyes as the water rained down on him. He cupped some in his hand and gently sponged at the raw areas on Cygnus' shoulder blade where a paintball had got him. "Sex is all that I know. Its all that I'm good for. I wish that wasn't true, but it is."

Cygnus put his arms around Bastion's shoulders, a gesture the Doll returned awkwardly, and the Islander felt as though he were holding a statue. "Okay," he said, untangling himself and draping his hair back over his eyes. "I understand."

"Are you sure you're still down?" Bastion asked, and his tone all but broke Cygnus' heart. Whatever was wrong, whatever had happened to bring him here, brought him here broken, filled with self-reproach and shame that no man should have at his age. He lowered himself to his knees in response, until he was eye level with the other boy's pelvis.

"I am."

Outside, Savannah drew her arms around herself in the desert gales, trying to reimagine the sweltering heat from earlier. She rubbed her hands together as Sakushi approached her, smirking. Neither of them noticed Cygnus exit the bathhouse in a huff, or Bastion follow him a few moments later, nor another figure slip in once they both were out of sight.

"Well?"

The Conman smirked. "Three more on board," he told her, smirking triumphantly. "The smart girl, the actor-boy, and the girl that girl that got sniped," he listed. Savannah wrinkled her nose. Obviously he was referring to Caroline and her new entourage, and while she could see the appeal in Carmen and Lauro, Caroline struck her as surprising. "Why Caroline?" she asked. "What can she do?"

At this, the conman smirk deepened. "We may need someone to take a fall," he explained. "She seemed to be good at taking a hit; took a bullet to the pussy and she lived."

She swatted him on the chest but grinned nonetheless; her new compatriot, for all his vulgarity, had a point. "Did you bring me what we talked about?"

"They were all so stoned, they gave in without question," the conman extended three signed leaflets, shrugging. "Why did you want their confessions, again?"

The blonde examined them, keeping the details obscured for integrity's sake. All she wanted was the signatures, those were far damning enough. "Just in case anyone tries to pussy out on us," she insisted. "I've already added mine," she continued, pressing the notes into the envelope she'd stolen, alongside the pendant. "So that just leaves you."

"I don't have any hamartia," he explained plainly. "Everyone with cable knows why I'm here. Just take this."

He reached into his pocket and tossed her a small pendant embroidered with the likeness of Ganesh. She quirked an eyebrow, and Sakushi gave her a strange look, one in equal measures abashed and annoyed.

"It's my sister's, alright? And I have to get it back to her. I won't be going anywhere without it."

The Thrill Seeker clutched the trinket indignantly, scowling. "You honestly thing I'm dumb enough to believe some tourist's lighter is going to-"

Like lightning, the conman snagged the thing back, with as much fear etched into his face as anger. "I swear to fuck, if you break it…"

Silence spanned between the two as the conman examined his treasure, looking for something her touch had contaminated. Savannah looked at him incredulously. "I never would've expected you of all people to be so devoted to-"

"I'm not devoted to anything but myself," he corrected her shortly. "I just... didn't mean to steal this, that's all. I need to return it, I won't leave without it. If it means getting you off my dick about loyalty, just take the damn thing."

She gave him a confused look, and he sighed. "Look, my sister and I don't come from a lot. Back home, they don't look at us like much. Maybe you know it as 'dalit'. Untouchable. It's the caste we belonged to. When our parents died, they didn't give a shit what happened to us. So, we did what we had to to survive."

Savannah crossed her arms. "An origin story, huh," she asked, and the boy glowered. "Fine," she surrendered, raising her hands. "You were poor so you started stealing. Makes sense."

"I'm not talking about stealing; I would've stolen anyway," he stated. "I'm talking doing what we had to to survive."

The pieces began to fill themselves in within Savannah's head. The syndicates, the murders; once he got a taste he just didn't stop. If possible, her opinion of him lowered further, and she leaned back on her hands as he continued talking.

"I started getting better at what I did. I got to pursuing deals, moving substances... eventually I found a syndicate, rose through the ranks... I came to this backwater country on the heels of a kingpin from the Caribbean, thought maybe I could get in on his trade. See, thats what I mean with criminals. They're ultimately just people. This so-called kingpin, he was just some bloated little bitch who fell into his line of work and got lucky, and I got nabbed chasing him. There's no point in believing anyone bigger than they are. At the end of the day, it only took one bullet to take that fatass down. And then it only took seven cops to drag my ass here."

The air around them began to feel clear, as though the girl were seeing him emerge from a fog. Still, she thought to herself, there was certainly no guarantee he was telling the truth. Honesty, she was aware, was nothing but a persona to people like Sakushi. No sob story would change that.

"Give me the thing," she relented, and Sakushi handed over his trinket. "If I find out your lying," she said blankly, "I'll make what Bastion did to your ass look like a hug."

The conman watched as she disappeared into the darkness, and he sighed.

"Sakushi," a voice called to his left, and he turned his attention to the bathhouse as a plume of steam belched out of the doorway. A figure shadowed by the fluorescent light waved to him. "Hey there."

For veteran fans, picture Heather's audition tape, only remove the towels. Both of them.

Exhaling sensually, Ana exited the bathhouse slowly, cupping her breasts with her hands and relishing the visible effect that her nude body had on the Conman's libido. Immediately, he bit his lip, crossed one leg in from of the other, against the swell of his phallus. "Hey," he replied, somewhat awkwardly, which Ana smiled at.

"Told you I wasn't a little girl, she said smugly, moving her hands and gesturing to her figure enveloped in the steam. Sakushi seemed to have lost control over his tongue; it flopped languidly in his mouth as though disconnected from his brain. "Y-Yeah," he finally managed, approaching her. "Guess you aren't."

The People Pleaser allowed herself a girlish giggle as she seized Sakushi's hand and placed it gingerly on her hip, pulling herself towards him until their lips were mere centimeters apart. "Its always been a fantasy of mine you know," she whispered, inching her lips back each time the larger boy tried to capture them with his. "Being with a bad boy."

With great finesse, she undid his zipper and slid her hand inside, feeling his pulse thump erratically against her palm. "How much badder could I get," she continued breathily, "than an internationally ranked criminal? And the way you took charge today-" Ana gave a prurient moan, cutting herself off.

 _Most people would've caught on to the girl's sudden shift in nature, and I don't mean to imply Sakushi was so oblivious that he did not. But understand, as Ana did, that that this boy, regardless of his criminal prowess, was ultimately still a teenage male, one who's lifestyle didn't oft permit hooking up with anyone who worked outside some syphilis-riddled brothel. It was merely a matter of anatomy; as they say, the mind is strong but the flesh is weak._

"You couldn't," Sakushi confirmed cockily, and the girl mewed as pulled the t-shirt from his body, careful not to pull back far enough to dislodge Ana's hand from the underside of his cock. Internally, he was boiling; he'd been waiting for something like this to happen. He'd stopped himself from jerking off in the bathroom for this. He knew it was only a matter of time.

"Why don't we go somewhere a little more private," Ana whispered to him, grinning coquettishly. "Somewhere where I can get my mouth around this thing?"

Sakushi cracked a seductive grin of his own, one Ana found genuinely charming. She might've actually enjoyed sucking him off, had time permitted. Unfortunately, it didn't.

"But first," she said, whipping her wet hair back and pressing her body into his, "I have some things I really want to know."

Sakushi almost gnashed his teeth in anticipation, indigo hair flying in the desert wind. "Anything."

"What's this I've been hearing about an escape plan?"

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **2159 Hours MST**

 **Staff Housing, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

"You're leaving? You promised you'd stay for at least a few weeks."

The policewomen glowered as they continued loading their squad car. "Not anymore," MacArthur said tonelessly. "Chief is willing to reassign us to another precinct, one closer to Phoenix."

Madeline Clarke shook her head, "I don't understand, you promised. I- Has one of the guards said something? Maybe one of the inmates?"

"About that," she stated, turning to Truman. "Tell the Colonel to expect a phone call or a visit in a few days."

Clarke visibly repressed her nervousness. "A visit? From who, dear?"

This time, it was Sanders who addressed her, her hand immediately finding the outline of the tape recorder and the flash drive in her uniform's pocket.

"A real social worker," she told her. "We put in a request for one ourselves."

"Why?"

"Because Mr. Truman, there's no way some of the shit we saw today was licensed. This is criminal abuse, or at the very least criminal negligence. Not to mention we have reason to suspect conspiracy here."

Truman and Clarke looked at each other contemplatively, "Conspiracy?"

MacArthur swallowed. Sanders was usually the rational one, but right now it was obvious that neither Truman nor Clarke were as intimidated by their accusations as they were inconvenienced. They obviously needed to leave, but Sander's seemed too angry to see that. "Why hasn't the firm ever even heard of you, Miss Clarke? Or is that even your real name?"

The woman raised her chin at the accusation. "I can assure you-"

"I'm sure you can, MacArthur said with finality. "Just as I'm sure that, once we have proper clearance, you both, and that Colonel, will be under arrest."

She pulled Sanders away, throwing over her shoulder, with mocking laughter in her voice, "You're about to have a big problem on your hands, lady."

"Truman."

"I know."

Those of you who watched the Ridonculous Race know that, in comparison, the Officers did not have a glaring final flaw. You were meant to root for them, it seemed, because of all your options they were among the most sympathetic. Of course, in real life, they had their pride, and their pride sometimes stopped them from exercising the proper measure of caution that the situation called for.

For example, neither woman was aware that they didn't have their guns.

By the time they did, it was too late.

As Truman hoisted two corpses up, Clarke sighed. "Such a shame," she whispered as Truman emptied their uniforms of valuables. He quickly crushed the flash drive under his boot. "Follow me," Clarke instructed, leaving the pile of goods in the darkness. "We'll sort through all that later."

As they left, neither of them noticed an eavesdropper scamper up to the pile and seize Sanders' tape recorder.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **2209 Hours MST**

 **Construction Lot #7, The Kovanah Reserve - Ephraim Ridge**

The toolshed opposite the old tribal building had been abandoned since the beginning, long before the council handed over the reserve. They had thought that, until they could get around to burying the bodies, they would be well hidden here. Except there was already something there.

Sanders' gun still against her hip, Madeline edged towards the dark mass in the corner. She turned when Truman stumbled in her periphery, swatting madly at his face.

"What are you doing?"

Truman snarled, spitting. "Something bit me. Jesus, this place is swarming."

Clarke shined her light in all directions. Truman dropped his and scrambled for it amidst on onslaught of blowflies when she screamed. Sander's corpse fell from his grasp.

"My God," she gasped. "It's Walters…"

The boy had been shoved hastily into a corner, slumped like a rag doll against the wall. Flecks of chapped. bloody vomit spattered down his front; the only thing on his body the flies wouldn't touch. In fact, it seemed like they were consciously avoiding it. She clicked on her flashlight, sending a nearby cluster of lustrous-green specks swarming and buzzing in all directions. If it were possible, which she wouldn't have believed if she hadn't seen, there were somehow more insects on the other side of the shed. The walls and rafters were invisible beneath them, all of those not on Walters congregating in the corner, swarming around a-

"Holy shit."

Truman squinted at Fenton's remains under the blanket of green wings. They covered almost every inch of his body, weaving in and out of open wounds and feasting on exposed mucosa. In the beam of the flashlight, he could make out the pearly maggots already eating though his open eyes, his gaping lips.

On his throat, also entirely untouched by the insects, someone had carved a menacing rendition of a ten-pointed star, beneath which lay an equally deliberate signature.

 _Set_

Truman shook his head. "Holy shit," he muttered again. He looked over at the social worker. Her expression was blank, unreadable, as she clutched the flashlight in her hands.

The social worker gasped as the flies moved from Walters chest. Another star, and another signature, both apparently avoided by the swarm.

"Now," said Madeline Clarke emotionlessly. "Now, this is a problem."

"Here's another one," Truman said, tossing the two policewomen to the flies in the remaining corner. Clarke shined her flashlight at the thing in his hand, and gasped. "We've had our first runner," Truman confirmed grimly, pocketing Sakushi's collar. "Colonel," he breathed into a walkie-talkie. "We've got a problem."

Neither saw Ana standing in the doorway, shaking her head in disapproval, a thin trail of blood that wasn't her own oozing down from one lip.

 _The flies were so thick in their number, and Clarke and Truman were both so on edge, they didn't remember something concerning geometry: most tool sheds have four corners._

 _Had they braved the swarm, they never would've suspected Sakushi for the obvious. They would've likely barred the real Set from making her greatest mistake. Sixteen more lives might've been spared. The Ephraim Atrocity would never have come to be._

 _Alas. If only._

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **2144 Hours**

 **McLean's Office, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

Tension crackled through the air like static on a broken television. Everything in his office seemed cold to the touch; his desk, his woebegone computer, the snapshot atop his filing cabinet.

Maxwell McLean sat like a statue, and man of stone. Only his fingers moved, stiffly tapping keys in a jolted staccato, until the emails were finished. He'd only had it in him to write one, which he copied and pasted twice with the names changed. Sending them took some effort, a few deep breaths, though he didn't quite understand why. He'd found Fenton in a trailer park, living alone with a trashcan overflowing with syringes for company, no friends or family to speak of. Walters had a family, in a loose sense of the term; one that likely wouldn't mourn him too heavily. Neither death would present too much of a problem, nothing they couldn't cover up, still, he felt as though someone had sucked all the air from his lungs with a vacuum. He had never wanted to face death again.

Outside, he heard the front door to the building open, and then someone talking to the redheaded guard he'd taken on as a secretary. He pulled his cigarette one final time before plucking it from his lips and pressing it into the ashtray. He popped a sand cherry in his mouth just as the boy inched through his door.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

McLean, for the first time, lifted his head to look at Miles as he entered. "Mr. Jackson," he greeted curtly. "Please..."

He gestured vaguely to a small plastic chair before the desk, and Miles started towards it awkwardly. The amputee was pale, shaking slightly, though McLean could see he was one of the few that hadn't resorted to tears on him. Of course he hadn't, McLean groused to himself. There was too much at stake for him otherwise. "I suppose you know why I called you in-?"

"I didn't do it."

McLean leaned back in his chair. There was something different in the boy's thin face this time, a small, but entirely present, resolution. "I know I'm not supposed to interrupt you," he continued forcefully. "And I know that you don't believe me. But I'm telling you, I didn't do it, and if you fry me right now, you're frying an innocent man."

Miles pressed his glare into the dark pupils of the man before him, feeling as though he were being lowered into an underground cave, being swallowed by darkness. "I didn't kill those men, Colonel. I didn't kill them."

For a moment, neither man said anything, and Miles refused to relent his gaze. He had his mind made up that he would not take the fall for this, and nothing McLean said or did to him would change that. Then, the Colonel surprised him.

"I know you didn't."

"I- You do?"

The Colonel nodded slowly, assuringly. "You had the opportunity to do something really stupid today, and you didn't take it. With that broken collar, you could've made a break for it and I wouldn't have been any the wiser. Plus, you really showed guts today. You proved to me that I could trust you."

Miles doubted his own sense for the first time in his entire life. The Colonel continued, "Look, there isn't much I can do to overturn a court sentencing. As I'm sure you're aware, your stay here, as well as everyone's, is indefinite. You're here until we say otherwise. But, Total Reform…" The old man hesitated. Truthfully, he had never anticipated playing this card, for many reasons. The most prominent of these was the loss of integrity for his institute; it was no longer impervious if the inmates understood the legality of the situation.

But then, he also couldn't afford to lose this place. Not when he was so close.

"Total Reform is owned privately, solely by me. But the recent developments have threatened its future. If what has happened ever happens again, I'm done for. And you all end up in federal prison in all likelihood. If you think this place is shit, wait until you see what life is like there."

Miles nodded slowly, the realist part of his brain taking over. If indeed the plug got pulled, there wasn't any telling what would happen to them. He may never be released, may never see his father again. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need to find who killed those guards."

"Sakushi killed them," Miles said incredulously. "He hung his collar and-"

But the Colonel was already shaking his head. "I can't tell you how I know, but I know that isn't true. At least, not entirely. He didn't act alone if he did."

Miles blinked, suddenly feeling apprehensive. Overhead, the lights flickered, and a coyote howled plaintively in the distance. "So… then…"

The Colonel stood, rubbing a crease in his brow. "I just want to ensure the continued safety of my charges and of this institute. And for that I need your help. In exchange, I'm willing to offer my help in annulling your sentence."

The old man stood from his desk and made his way over to his filing cabinet, and Miles continued to stare ahead. What had he just gotten himself into? What had he just gotten himself into?

He was about to inquire into his strange new position when McLean presented to him what looked to be an insect, with a back like grating and tiny wires jutting up like transceivers. Miles had to squint to see it properly. On closer inspection he saw what the old man was getting at. "Its a microphone," he offered, and McLean nodded.

"You want to plant that in the barracks?" McLean shook his head, and Miles felt momentarily confused, and then more violated than he ever had in his entire life. McLean slid it into the compartment where what remained of his arm adhered to his prosthetic.

"I'm counting on you," said the Colonel.

* * *

 **August 7th, 2015**

 **2151 Hours MST**

 **Medical Building, Total Reform Campground - Ephraim Ridge**

She should've been taken to a hospital straight away.

Jeanie was beside herself, white at the lips and flaring furiously at the nostrils. Her attendant, the one McLean hadn't fired, stood by anxiously while Truman sat idly in the medic's office, shaking his foot in unmistakable nerves. "I held my tongue when those collars shocked that one boy so hard it burned the skin off his neck, didn't I? And then when you did the same to that poor wretch after he'd just come out of a heatstroke," she hissed, words tumbling out of her in a rapid staccato. "But this, to keep her here after that nothing short of criminal negligence! If action isn't taken, I swear I'll have no choice but to-"

Truman stood. "You'll keep your mouth shut is what you'll do," he muttered darkly, "Or else everything you, as well of the rest of us, have done will mean absolutely nothing."

"This wasn't part of the deal," Jeanie replied, keeping her voice low, though for all Caroline cared, she hadn't really needed to; she hadn't been listening. She laid on her cot, watching the IV drip into her veins through a tube fed into her arm. The pain in her lower abdomen long since had ebbed away, though whatever had been wrong with her, Janine hadn't said. She was rather concerned, which she felt she had the right to be, but she also doubted that eavesdropping would help her. It didn't seem as though the medic didn't have any idea herself.

"3-22-13," voice read in a whisper, and Caroline's legs jerked in surprise. Her left hand immediately gripped her right wrist, where those exact numbers were inscribed forever on her skin beneath a dragonfly. There was no one there, only the subdued murmurings of Truman and Jeanie's conversation in the next room over. It came again; a child's voice, thick with a stately-sounding accent she couldn't identify and pregnant with a mirth that made her nervous. "I can help you, if you will let me in. Let me in and I can make them sorry for what they did."

She still couldn't see anything, but she felt it. The air around her seemed to pulsate as though it had a heartbeat, and then a heavy, intangible something began to wrap itself around her cot like a snake coiling it's prey. "Let me in," it whispered again, "Quickly, before Japheth-"

"Carro?"

She gasped as whatever had found her recoiled and dissipated soundlessly. She must've looked absolutely petrified when she turned to the sound of her name because Lauro bowed his head submissively. "Sorry," he said quietly. "One of the nurses let us in."

Caroline swallowed past the sudden dryness of her mouth. What the fuck had that been? "Did you feel that just now?" she asked him.

Lauro looked at her warily, clutching a brown paper bag that Caroline noticed at his side. "Feel what," he asked slowly.

The Firecracker shook her head slightly, him having to ask was a clear answer. "What'd you steal," she asked him with a halfway smirk, which he returned.

"I figured you could use a little pick-me-up," he told her smugly, wafting the bag in her direction so she could get a whiff. Caroline's eyes widened and she craned her neck. Jeanie's and Truman's silhouettes had vanished from the divider that hid her from them, and she turned back to Lauro. "You must be insane," she chided him. "Get that out of here before they come back!"

Lauro chuckled, "Calm down, Carmen's got them taken care of. She's faking a reaction to the paint, apparently she's hallucinating," Lauro gave a self-satisfied smirk, and Caroline noticed how he hid his right arm when he mentioned the challenge. Patches of his skin that were still visible had flaked off, though nothing quite compared to what his collar hid on his neck. "I just figured you might wanna see what's waiting for you once they let you out of here. Wasn't easy to find it, but we managed."

Caroline grinned, feeling much better than she had previously despite her fears for her new acquaintance. Her hips still felt constricted, almost contracted, where her legs connected to her torso, but whatever McLean had done to her, the worst seemed to be over. What's more, though the shirt she'd worn and her jeans had been ruined, they saved the skin on her stomach from damage. Nothing to do now but treat the residual discomfort, which Lauro looked apt to do. "We?" she asked, as she pulled herself out of the bed, and then she grinned as Carmen sauntered in, eyes already red and smiling as peacefully as Caroline had ever seen. "Yeah, we," the girl confirmed. "You never got a decent hit earlier."

Caroline's grin deepened. "You fucks are crazy," she whispered. "Let's go kill that shit."

* * *

 **August 8th, 2015**

 **0000 Hours MST**

 **Outside the Total Reform Compound - Ephraim Ridge**

 _I'd come across him at the gate. For the first time, I had to be quiet; the inmates were all forbidden from sleeping for whatever reason._

 _The coyote that had watched over my broken clouds all day now approached me, and I sighed. He did as well, with indignation, which I understood. It is exhausting to pretend to be something you aren't. I did it through most of my youth._

 _I stooped down to talk to him, swallowing the lump in my throat. "You again?"_

 _He nodded. "Then, my brother has awoken?" I asked._

 _And the coyote replied, in the plainest English. "Yes."_

 _He jerked his snout in the girl's direction before padding off. Deliverance hadn't moved all day; she stayed planted outside the gate without the slightest movement as if cemented. In fact, as statues do, she began growing weeds. Dandelions, to be precise._

 _One wouldn't know to look at it: they'd likely just see it as an ornament she put in her hair. I knew, of course. I'd seen this before and, now that I think about it, so have you. Back on the ridge, decades ago._

 _"You don't have to do this," I reminded her. "I didn't work the last time."_

 _Actually, it had worked too well, but even so the Abbess wasn't swayed. "Yes, I do," she stated, and to the east, the coyote howled again. The Star Man has made his choice, and so have I. The Night of Sacrament is only twelve days away."_

 _Any argument I may have had was silenced by the hum overhead. I was the only one who looked up to watch three more stars streak across the darkness. My muscles would've clenched in anxiety had I not been expecting such a development._

 _"The children in there," I protested weakly. "They don't deserve this."_

 _Deliverance didn't move, but I saw her aura darken in subtle dejection. "I know, angel," she whispered. "They never do."_

 _I had already turned to leave when she spoke again. "There's just no more time, I'm afraid."_

 _I couldn't help but feel sympathetic. It hadn't been this way, years ago, before we'd gotten ourselves in so deep. I turned to her, and still today wish I hadn't. I hadn't wanted to watch; it was like watching a child tear the wings off a grasshopper: wholly, innocently gruesome. She exhaled onto the dandelion, and a cloud of white danced into the air, through the grating of the fence. Deliverance vanished before my very eyes as the stem fell from her fingers._

 _Now, I've got a riddle for you: what is the one thing in the world that will kill unintentionally, only by its presence alone? What will do this without knowing language, without attacking with any intent or giving off any visible signs that it is dangerous, because it itself does not know that it is? It kills only through its attempt to survive in a world which it cannot understand. Did you say fire, or some other disaster? A beast of some sort? Set? Me?_

 _All good guesses, none of them true. No, the answer is something else. Something that could be balanced on a pinhead and yet has literally been your bane since you first crawled from the mud._

 _Disease._

* * *

 **This Author's Note can be changed after the fact. I'm glad that you trusted me enough to let me help you out, O. It means a lot.**

 **-Kiffs**


End file.
